Twisted @ The Venue
23rd-Apr-2000

On Easter Sunday, April 23rd, TWISTED at The Venue Nightclub, Edinburgh, united over 600 hard dance fanatics from the far reaches of the U.K. in an allnight celebration of the finest underground hard dance music, raising in excess of £3000 for the Scottish Charities Kosovo Appeal.

Those who attended should be proud. They contributed not only to charity but also to the formation of one of the most up for it, attitude free crowds I have ever encountered. For the second time in as many events TWISTED impressed me with its superb atmosphere. A mixture of techno devotees, dredlocked hippies, tracksuited hardcore ravers, combat pant wearing skaters, gabba nutcases, students, posh birds and even smartly dressed house and trance connoisseurs mingled happily across three packed dancefloors, under a multitude of spectacular lights, 3D sculptures, combat netting drappery and UV reactive psychedelic banners.

In the darkside gabba room, I caught the opening set of the night from Rebellions DJ Rage, building flawlessly from some Rotterdam style gabba to some guitar lead speedcore, a man to watch. In the Digital Asylum Zykotik was setting the pace with some banging techno and acid, and in the Reflexion room local lad Kev Wright warmed the crowd with some uplifting trance. With three excellent rooms of music to chose from, I found myself wandering most of the night, meeting old faces and encountering new ones. Scott Brown, Bounceman and Cutthroat kept the bouncey crowd happy in the Reflexion room with some bouncey trancey hardcore, Davo, Trapped Boy, Smurf, Lee G, DJ Q, Traffik, Simon Underground and Sass (looking like a member of Oasis) gave the Darkside room a thorough industrial ear-bashing whilst I caught the Digital Asylum bouncing to some nasteeee drum'n'bass from Semantix followed by the acid sounds of DJ Serge. After 4 painful trips to the little girls room (courtesy of some dodgy local fodder), I assumed my place at the decks for a set of funky acid received by a very supportive crowd. Fortunately Simon Underground rescued me before my next inevitable toilet adventure, jumping on the decks with some skillful hip hop beat juggling and scratching, quickly acquiring a crowd of deck hangers and hip hop junkies.

By 3am a large beer spillage on the stair well was providing accidental entertainment for several unlucky clubbers who received a free trip to the club basement with bruises to boot.
One of the highlights of my night was the Last Tomorrow PA, slow rave orientated gabba, heavily littered with mentasm style stabs….what was most impressive was the fact the PA occurred at all considering how spangled the lads were on Special Brew.

The night was rounded off superbly with a set of pounding acid from Aaron Liberator. Building from the progressive acid Cluster style to mindless 303 action. The 5am crowd screamed for more, but we ended up outside only to be dispersed by officer dibble.

In a time when the dance music scene appears to be dominated by snobbery and segregation between genres TWISTED is a refreshing change. Attracting an open-minded up for it crowd the next TWISTED event is a must for any true hard dance enthusiast. Absolute respect to the promoters, dj's and PA's (who donated their services for free) and all who attended.

- [Little Miss Skinny]