Happy birthday Mister Fabric

Ten years is a helluva long time for a club to be running and you can see why it’s prevailed from the massacre that was last weekend over at Charterhouse Street.

With an epic four day celebration, I honestly feel for the cleaners on Monday afternoon. The dubstep/electro crossover thurs/fri nights were followed by an intense techno weekend onslaught with a line-up of the biggest names from Steve Bug, Kompakt’s Michael Mayer to the pretty buff Ivan Smagghe, Konrad Black, Rub N Tug and Swayzak to residents Craig Richards and Terry Francis. Though Kenny Larkin cancelled (leaving a delightful birthday message for all), Pete Herbert took to the decks with his usual disco house whilst Berlin’s Mathew Jonson (via trippy techno) and Daniel Bell were on full form.

Experiencing what must have been a billion hours of Villalobos, the sweaty (yes legendary, but also sweaty) man started with a pretty progressively dark Berlin techno set (possibly and probably off his face) merging with 90s techno rave. Rising to the occasion, we leapt onstage for some oh-so-casual dancing before jiggling on up to the camp disco room aka Room 3, where we witnessed enough legal poppers and Renaissance era outfits to freak us the hell out.

Almost having been trapped in the labyrinthine underground at 10am, it’s impossible to say how many hours were spent deciding whether to set up camp in there for good. The incessant light of day disturbed me enough to get my mind off not being able to feel my legs, whilst I got all sad that entering a dark pit of techno at such hours really isn’t commonplace enough… but I guess I’ll have to wait till next year.