Kissy Sell Out – East Village

Well first of all, if you are reading this, then I guess a thank you is in order. You weren’t scared away by my welcome post…or possibly you are just so bored at work and have exhausted every possible time-filler such as Facebook/Twitter, and having a read through this seems like a marginally better option to twiddling your thumbs. Either way, welcome back!

As promised, I am going to write about the first official night of the Around the World in 30 Raves group, that we attended last week, Wednesday 13th October. It was Kissy Sell Out on his San City High label tour playing at East Village which is conveniently located in Old Street, just a few minutes walk from my flat. Kissy is a Radio 1 DJ, who has a regular slot on Thursday nights, and was recently described in the media as “being a staple of the East London electro scene”. His slightly off-key and very upbeat style of music is what I consider a very ‘fun’ music experience. Before the summer, I hadn’t seen him play since my birthday at Leeds Union 18 months ago, but have listened to him regularly on the radio. Over festival season I managed to see him play at Melt, Global Gathering, V Festival and Creamfields. I have to admit that his 4am set at Melt was one of my favourite sets of the whole summer. The sun was just starting to rise over what is one of the most beautiful settings for a festival (trust me you need to see it to fully appreciate it), and it was a very rare sight to witness a crowd getting so hyper and raving so hard on what were definitely weary legs considering the festival had been in full swing since lunch time the day before!

Anyway, back to last Wednesday. I had purchased my ticket for this event as soon as I saw that Kissy was due to play in London. Wednesday nights are reserved for very special events, as attempting to be at work at 6.30am the following day is not something I like to do on a regular basis. After buying my ticket I noticed a competition on the Facebook page for the event, with a chance to win some signed merchandise, a pair of free tickets, and most importantly the opportunity to meet Kissy in person and have a chat with him on the night. All you had to do was a send a message with the reason you deserved to win this prize more than anyone else. I couldn’t help myself, so I poured my heart out to his promoter with a million reasons why I should win. Unfortunately for you lot, the details of this message are remaining a secret as upon re-reading it, I find myself rather embarrassed by it! Well, I got a message back a week later on the day of the event informing me that I had won the competition!!! Put it this way, subtle excitement is not my specialty…I spent the rest of the day unable to concentrate on anything else. I was buzzing.

After a few drinks at the flat to calm the nerves of meeting Kissy, a group of us headed down to East Village. When we arrived I was welcomed with an armful of signed CDs and t-shirts etc, but the man himself wasn’t at the event yet so we hit the bar for a few rounds and wandered down into the basement to catch some of the other acts on the San City High label. Throughout the night we partied to the sounds of Blamma! Blamma!, Hot Pink Delorean, The Squatters, Union and Zed’s Dead. I wish I had taken better notice of who was playing at each point and made some mental notes to share with you, but at this point I didn’t own my very own raving blog and therefore the best I can offer you is that the basement was lively all through the night. The style of the DJs was very similar to Kissy, favouring remixes of commercial electro tunes, upbeat tempos, and never a lack of bass. I promise in future my reviews will be far more detailed and informative but you’ll have to make do this time.

I won’t boast about the several hours I spent with Kissy, the VIP room full of celebrities we hung out in, the free drinks he kept passing my way, or the incredible moment of heading down to dancefloor and ‘casually’ introducing him to all my friends. Including one friend who decided to terrorise Kissy by asking who he was and then responding with “I know, I was only joking, great set by the way”. The answer to which was “I haven’t played yet”! What I will do is show you a picture of a very drunk version of myself with Kissy and just say that he couldn’t have been any nicer to me or any more fun to hang out with for the night, so enjoy:

The next couple of hours consisted of cutting some serious shapes on the dance floor. I don’t want to upload all of the pictures, so I’ve picked two out of the album:

 Finally 1.30 arrived and it was time for Kissy to do his thing, starting with his remix of the extremely over-played but massive tune; Magnetic man ft. Katy B – Katy on a Mission. I couldn’t tell you much about the playlist after that I’m afraid, however I do remember thinking to myself that as much as I was enjoying the music, it wasn’t the best I’ve seen of Kissy. Perhaps that was too much to ask for as it’s nearly impossible to try and equal a set played to 60,000 people with one that is only for a few hundred. The atmosphere is completely different. All I know is that we stumbled home in time to crawl into bed around 3am. I somehow managed to get myself out of bed and showered in time for work, and despite the grueling hangover and horrific lack of sleep, there was a smile on my face for the whole of Thursday. It was a memorable night, one of my favourites of 2010, and I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off Around the World in 30 Raves. See you on the dancefloor.