I got back from Energy Cocktail this morning, and it was a really good event. The turnout wasn’t as high as I was expecting though, especially as the organisers have been promoting it non-stop for the last couple of months. Anyway, it was my first time to see Kevin Energy live, and he blew the roof off with his set. Actually, it was the first time to see DJs Tekka, Silver and T-Energy too, so it was well worth the trip.

First up was KA-NA, and if I’m being completely honest I was looking forward to her set the most (!), mainly because I can pretty much guarantee that all the tunes she plays will be my kind of thing. In the end she played one of her ‘Alek Szahala sets’, with only one track from Betwixt & Between (Tindaros).

I was the third person in the queue to get into Cube at 11pm, and at the start heard Rx’s Lacrima bootleg while I was still downstairs. After that was Proteus/Ephexis/Ting’s Angel of Hell, followed mostly by Alek’s tracks. She’s done a really good job rounding up some promos too (I’ve helped out a bit with that), and she played Lagash (seen in the video above), Voices of Babylon and Alek’s Adagio remix. It was already 100% my kind of set, but it then went up to 110% when she played my remix of Hell’s Gate! I couldn’t believe my ears as she mixed it in after Alek’s Man Eaten – now I know the feeling of being on the floor while another DJ plays your tune…amazing. I couldn’t thank KA-NA enough, and it’s definitely inspired me to come up with some more (and better) dark/high-bpm tunes in the future.

Next was DJ Silver with some modern happy hardcore. His set was pretty much perfect for the time slot, with a lot of uplifting tunes interspersed with a few harder tracks. By about the midpoint he had really got the crowd going, but then lost them a bit with a few too many breakdowns/less melodic tunes. Things got going again after that though, and even if I didn’t know many of the tunes, there were a few nice remixes etc that I picked up on.

Eryk Orpheus played almost the sort of set I was expecting, heavy on the acid lines, but with quite a lot of melodic tunes too. Unfortunately a lot of the crowd weren’t familiar with his tunes/Eryk himself, so it took a while for things to get going. Maybe it shows the downside of a Live PA..if the crowd aren’t feeling it, it’s hard to change things up suddenly. Anyway, his live filtering of the acid lines was great (I was just wishing for more of the same), and he played one of my all-time favourite UK freeform tunes, PVC. The last couple of tracks were great too, following I’m the Daddy, but I haven’t heard them before…hopefully a tracklist will turn up somewhere.

Following Eryk Orpheus was DJ Tekka, and he did a brilliant job of preparing the crowd for Kevin Energy. It must have been a bit annoying for the other DJs actually, as a lot of the crowd seemed set on hearing Kevin Energy, and nobody else….and so spent over half of the night camped in the corners. Tekka really worked things well, and gradually got people back onto the floor with some very nice selection. It was maybe a bit too happy for me, but there were some great retro remixes as well the occasional bit of drum and bass. The main downside was the presence of two MCs….one would be bad enough. Luckily the mics weren’t too loud and I could just ignore them, but why on earth they are needed in a hardcore event I’ll never know.

Next was Kevin Energy, and what a great set it was. At the end of the event I had a chance to have a quick chat with him, and he said he tried to play a few different styles in the one set – which I thought was a good idea too, with the NRGetic Romancer crowd being there, plus the happy hardcore/raver horn crew, it was quite a mix. In his words, he started off pretty hard, then ‘a little bit of cheese’, then a few remixes and new tracks. Of course, not all the tunes were my kind of thing, but the way he played the crowd, combining those styles in a way to get almost everyone dancing was a great example.

I hope there’ll be a tracklist somewhere, as those opening tunes were really great, a lot more twisted than I’ve heard before from Nu-Energy, and could definitely fit into a darker set. He’s also technically fantastic, with the set flowing perfectly, and some very nice cuts between tracks. I’m not a big fan of scratching in freeform, but he’s extremely good at that too, obviously….and the final thing was his ‘performance’ up there in the booth, KA-NA and me had been talking about that before his set and he really got the crowd on his side and gave the set some extra energy.

T-Energy played the last set of the night, and although predictably quite a few people disappeared once Kevin left the booth, he came up with a very good set. The first track especially impressed me, a really good selection considering he had to somehow pick the crowd up again after the previous 90 minutes. I don’t know what tune it was, but I’ll try to find out…

After that my legs gave up and I watched most of the set from up on the gantry sort of thing behind the main floor. There was the usual lightsabre craziness going on from the crowd, which was almost completely NRGetic Romancer members by that time. Thinking about it, it’s a surprise that more of the X-Treme Hard etc crowd didn’t come along to this one..maybe Studio Cube is a bit too far out of the way.

Overall it was a great event, and good to hear some tunes which I normally wouldn’t listen to, plus of course to meet Kevin himself and finally hear one of his sets live (unfortunately I only managed a quick word with Eryk Orpheus as were leaving Cube this morning). Next event is either THC or Operation Karma, I’ll have to check…

[Many thanks one again to Soham for the photos and video]