Club Reviews: South West Four 2008

Last Updated 30.08.08

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South West Four
	Date: Saturday 23rd August 2008 Address: Clapham Common, London Occurrence: One-Off Hours: 12noon – 9pm Ticket Price: £40 Genre: Various Dress Code: N/A
Line Up: TBC

This is still my favourite festival. SW4 gets it right again; perfect weather, great line up, great venue and great crowd. I just love arriving at lunch time in the sun and hearing house music booming out into the open air. It’s quite a surreal and exciting experience, as we are so used to dark rooms at 4am! It almost (that’s an almost) makes me feel like I’m in Ibiza. Fedde Le Grande was on the main stage as we arrived, and I was impressed. None of this “Put your hands up” stuff, but really cool tech house. Nice one Fedde! I’d heard before that he was good but hadn’t seen it for myself until today. Didn’t recognise him though! Being brought up on “proper” trance I had to go to see Andy Moor play in The Gallery tent. I love the chilled melodic trance that he makes and his set was ideal for 1pm in the sun. Lots of trademark choppy vocals, beefy basslines and those lead trancey sounds (I don’t know what they’re called do I?). He didn’t seem overly impressed with the sound system though, but was clearly enjoying himself nevertheless. The queues outside must have been diminishing quickly as all the tents were becoming a lot busier. It was just going berzerk in the Global Tent during Tiefschwarz’s set! Typical techno sounds thumping out into the air, then he dropped Sweet Dreams, yes, a tad predictable, but he turned the music off for most of it! Back to the techno and I just love those bass heavy tunes. After the breakdown (I don’t know if you call it a breakdown in techno?) you always get a massive cheer when it all kicks back in! I did miss Sven Vath’s set though which was one of the reasons for going, so not amused with myself! Although I did have the task of trying to explain to Hopkins the difference between techno, house, tech house, minimal and trance, which is still a work in progress! A bit later Claude Von Stroke was causing mayhem too, as it was near impossible to get into the Push tent. We heard a lot minimal noises coming out of there throughout the day. Nic Fancuilli and SOS were also playing here but the Kiss main stage had such a good line-up it was hard to keep away. We had Fedde, Paulo Mojo, Layo & Bushwacka, Morillo, Digweed, Tenaglia and Cox one after the after! Ok, at festivals you always encounter some bizarreness and I have to mention the German guy who saw the bus that said Superdrug on it and couldn’t believe his eyes! He was shouting “You English guys are so crazy” (being Scottish I could see his pint). You work it out! It was good to see the chalk wall retaining its place too and the addition of the Ibiza Angels. All makes for good fun in the sun. The Gallery tent was now becoming more populated and gathering a lot of heat with it. Sister Bliss was in full flow, playing lots of energetic electro and she was getting well into it, which is great to see. I loved the remix of Joey Beltram’s legendary Energy Flash. I’m soooo annoyed with myself… we missed Sander Van Doorn (and Sven Vath)! According to a few reports, he was on fire, totally destroying The Gallery tent. I was told that his uptempo set could have fit in anywhere, and this was coming from strictly non-trancers. You have to feel for Marcus Schulz who followed him, as his style is far more progressive and low key. He did drop it down a fair bit, but essentially he was warming up for the star attraction Armin, so he couldn’t bang it out at 140 bpm, could he? Ok, rant time. Can someone please tell me how Armin Van Buuren is the “World’s Number 1” DJ? I don’t get it. Trance is my first love, Tiesto is wicked, I DO understand the Dutch influenced trance, but this guy is so predictable it’s untrue. Anyway, I had to leave the tent (again: see also Global 2007). To his credit, the tent was packed out, they loved it and he always smiles, so whatever he is doing, it is working. The tents do get a bit hot and smelly though, so sitting back under the sun at the main stage soaking up the rays watching a who’s who of house music was a good idea we thought. I have to say though, I was quite surprised with Morillo’s set, in a good and bad way. It was a crowd pleasing set (the good bit, kind of), with a bit of everything thrown in and some not so great mixing (the bad bit). I heard Café Del Mar and Adam K’s magnificent Twilight plus quite a few tried and tested electro tunes. I was expecting more house but I believe this is his style these days. Diggers then did his usual thing, which was ok, nice mixing, good tunes, then Tenaglia did his usual thing too, nice mixing, ok tunes. Not sure if he was a great choice for the main stage but he set it up nicely for The Big Man! Yes, yes…Mr Cox (aka The Big Man) arrived at 7.30 for 90 minutes of happy bouncy techno (is that a genre?). He’s still one of my favourite DJs and he is always great to close a festival, plus he has the added skill of being able to talk on the mic. The music is very reminiscent of his Tuesday night at Space, which you have to go to! Just do it! So picture the scene: darkness had fallen, the green lasers were piercing the warm summer air and the fireworks were lighting up the starry night sky, all accompanied by 20,000 festival goers cheering in harmony (ahhh..beautiful I hear you say). It always passes very quickly, too quickly. Nine glorious hours in Clapham Common had come and gone for another year. I should give a big mention to the guys who were working in the bar behind the main stage, as they were swamped by people all day. They ran out of alcohol, but they were very well mannered and patient throughout. Well done! Hats off to you sirs!
Venue: 9/10 Music: 9/10 Crowd: 9/10 Sound System: 8/10 Total: 35/40 Rating: Gold Award
Review written by: Kevin Boyle	kevin@uk-cl.co.uk
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