Bloc Weekend 2010: review

My oh my - Bloc Weekend 2010 was a rambunctious affair. Thousands of dance music fiends descended on Butlins in Minehead for a three-day rinseout at the festival's fourth outing, and Gravity Skanker was there to witness it all.

Don't turn your nose up at a holiday park festival. They're actually rather fun. But I've talked about that before - let's get down to the nitty gritty.

I'm proud to report that it was the women who tore up the arenas this year. Headliners Salt n Pepa provided a damn good show, highly recommended to anyone who loves the early 90s sound. They had brilliant dancers, classic tracks (surprisingly more than I remember), and a great deal of energy and love for the crowd. It was brilliant, though Spinderella's a little out of practice.

Ms Dynamite also did a great job, MCing over DJ Zinc's bangin' set. She even did a top PA of 'Wile Out', a track that I love. Check it out in an earlier Gravity Skank blog post - woohah.

Further highlights of Bloc sets were Instra:mental and D:Bridge on the Friday night, who dropped a dutty couple of hours of dubstep in the more intimate Jac:Bloc arena. On an anthemic tip, Skream and Benga played a crowd-pleasing set in the main room, proving the dubstep pioneers still know what rocks the dance.

The Friday night at Bloc is always the messiest, but this year things were noticeably much quieter by Sunday. Two days of raving probably annihiliated a number of deserters, but I put it down to needing to get home for work on Monday. My crew raved it out till the end, conspicuous by our neon fancy dress (not many people partook in the wedding theme this year, boo).

Closing the Braindrop room on the last night, MJ Cole tore up the crowd... for half his set. Sadly things dropped off towards the end, and got progressively worse for The McMash Clan, who flipped the room into a weird blend of gabber, techno, (not very good) breaks and off-the-wall gnarly DnB. Hype came to the rescue a little too late, sadly with a mediocre set of DnB. I blame the five-hour drive from London.

I was gutted to miss Boy Better Know's grime set on the FWD + Rinse stage. Having caught crew member JME supporting Tinchy Stryder at The Roundhouse a couple of months ago, I'm now a proper convert. So hurrah for FWD and Rinse, who have shared links to mp3s of the night:

Click here for the Boy Better Know set at Bloc 2010.
Click here to download a zip file of the entire night.

It's a good old crowd at Bloc, so I was sad to see them let down by poor sound levels in almost all the arenas. In Tec:Bloc - usually the grimiest, most hardcore room - I could hold a conversation on the dancefloor and hear what was said. And this coming from someone with tinnitus. But sound issues aside, it was a rockin' festival, and Bloc always sells out for a reason. Here's to next year - see you there!

Deadly Rhythm: 2562 and Martyn

It seems that Deadly Rhythm lost the battle against FWD on Friday night.

Considering it carried a hefty lineup featuring 2562 and Martyn, the 'bass music' promotion at Plan B in Brixton wasn't as busy as it should have been, and it was clear that most of London had headed to Matter instead for dubstep and grime's biggest outing.

Plan B is smashing it these days. After a fire in May 2009 it was refurbished and reopened with a better sound system, better layout and some of the most cutting-edge DJs in dance music. Deadly Rhythm is one of its best nights and, despite the shortfall in numbers, Friday proved a winner (judging by the amount of gravity skankage at the front).

For what is usually quite a warbly affair, there was little dubstep. Instead we had garage, tech house and 'future garage' (more info on that here) blended into a storming night of... well, bass music.

The second room didn't open, which meant everyone was in attendance for headliner Martyn. His set was sadly delayed by yours truly, drunkenly requesting the DJ write a love letter to my-friend-who-is-your-biggest-fan. Martyn's response? 'Your mate should spend more time with his girlfriend.' Bless him, he still wrote the letter.    

It's just been announced that Martyn is doing a back to back with Kode 9 at Bloc Weekend. Pens at the ready...

Bloc 2010

I'm so excited at having bought a ticket for Bloc Weekend I think I just wet myself a little bit.

The beauty of this, and other holiday park festivals is, no camping. Oh, the joys of taking a hot shower between raves, walking just two minutes to reach the next stage, 24-hour arenas and going swimming or playing mini golf with your mates when still slightly spannered.

Having been to the festival every year since its inception in 2007, I can vouch for it being total, utter hilarity. This year the lineup includes Salt n Pepa (yes I'll be wearing my blue puffa jacket, circa 1999, for that set), Grandmaster Flash, Skream b2b Benga, Congo Natty and Roots Manuva. The promoters have even dug deep into their garage box to pull out MJ Cole who, I'm reliably told, spends his time living off the proceeds of 1998 album 'Sincere' and playing with mini helicopters.

Last year's Bloc brought out some strange habits. I developed an addiction to Burger King chips at 4am, Chris was so excited at finding a Ribena vending machine he spent £30 on the stuff, and Sally loved the dance mat so much she spent most of her time on it - despite the arcade game being positioned right outside a room of real music, with real DJs and real clubbers.

There are still tickets left. Check out the website here.