The long-running Hospital Records nights in Brighton maintain an impeccably high standard. The label started by Tony Colman – Mr London Elektricity – and Chris Goss in 1996 is still just as strong as it was a decade ago, and this was another showcase, with Camo & Krooked, Logistics, Metrik, Lung and Callous dominating the decks. Five hours of music were promised and by midnight the queues outside were already stretching back into the rain, buzzing with anticipation.
Once inside the buzz increased, buoyed by Donuts DJs in the bar playing an eclectic selection that tended towards hip hop but also veered into garage, bass and funk, offering a refreshing change in tempo. In the main room there were heavy tunes from the start of the night with top-class MCs (including Brighton’s old favourite MC Wrec) keeping the dancefloor rumbling.
Logistics’ set was one of the best received; his soul-influenced take on the genre sets him aside from his peers, and tonight that was especially evident. Whilst many drum‘n’bass acts use aggressive bass noise to keep the crowd focused, Logistics prefers a more heartfelt approach, and this worked brilliantly in the cavern of the Concorde. Headliners Camo & Krooked also lived up to their considerable hype, whipping the crowd into an arm-flailing, foot-stamping rabble that went equally as hard for old classics as for new songs from their album ‘Zeitgeist,’ released only a couple of weeks earlier.
It was hot and rammed in room one, and at times it felt a bit like drum’n’bass bingo with no prizes for the full house of ‘massive gurn’, ‘neon sunglasses’ and ‘sweaty topless man’. Most of the people at the front were still in nappies when Colman and Goss conceived Hospital Records, but it makes no difference. The crowd is clearly dedicated to the genre and its myriad modern interpretations. As long as the music keeps evolving like these acts have, and the crowds keep appreciating it like this crowd did, drum’n’bass has many more years in it yet.
Concorde2, Saturday 12th October 2013
Words by Jessica Marshall McHattie
