Seductive Soul @ The Cheshire Lounge Saturday 12th April 2008
Review - T2 Bad
Seductive Soul has settled very quickly into its new and former home The Cheshire Lounge formerly known as the Nags Head. It seem an age ago that the connoisseurs choice was at The Saracens Head and sometimes it’s easy to forget that they were ever there!
The weather was drizzly and chilly on Saturday night and I wasn’t at my best because of a late one the night before, but being a glutton for punishment, I soldiered on to spend what remained of the evening with the Seductive Soul Masses.
Well what can I say about Seductive Soul this month? It was quite sparsely occupied when I arrived but it was rapidly filling up as I was there quite early (well early for me anyway). I went downstairs and ordered a Tonic Water with Lime and struck up a conversation with committed Seductive Soul devotee Pauline about her ongoing IT problems with her home PC. Apparently she couldn’t connect to the internet for several days and she was holding the BT engineers to account for cutting her off from cyber-space. I’ve just been informed by her that after days of investigation and ear-bending, her problem was narrowed down to the fact she had plugged her internet broadband connection out which obviously had severe connotations for her where the internet was concerned, women and technology eh!!!!!
Anyway as the early mellow music was being played in the main arena, I went upstairs for a mooch where I bumped into Soul Control’s Def D and Mrs Def D who were relaxing on a Chesterfield sofa. I sat and chatted for a while and at around 12.30am when the venue had sufficiently filled I decided to get to work. The venue was quite full by now and the most noticeable thing that struck me was the amount of new faces who were there!!! Most of the regulars commented on this fact and seemed thrilled that there was a good turnover of fresh-blood which bodes well for the long-term future of the event.
I bumped into a posse of lively women from Merseyside who said that this was their first time at Seductive Soul and they were persuaded to attend because they liked the pictures of the event on the Soul Control website. To say they were having a good time was an understatement as they were proving to be the life and soul of the party!!! The music from Jim Hargreaves (Bob and Owen’s brother) was what you would come to expect at Seductive, a mellow blend of Quality Soul and 80’s/90’s classics.
DJ Mike Stephens took to the turntables at 1am and there seemed to be a buzz of excitement as the man considered to be the DJ of the moment by some began his set with Ghetto Heaven. What was really strange, and this was something that I’d noticed from earlier in the evening, was that the main arena seemed to be split atmosphere-wise. At the back where the bar and seating area is, everyone was chatting and drinking and seemed to be paying little attention to what had been going on all night, but as you moved forward there was a full on club-night in session!!!
Mike Stephens played a set that had the crowd moving, but one which generally contained no surprises. I would say the atmosphere at this point was set at a good steady pace rather than euphoric one, but Mike’s set was still proving to be the highlight of the evening. The Seductive virgins (and there seemed to be many in attendance), were enjoying their first experience of the connoisseurs choice.
Mike seemed to be playing overtime at this point and was replaced after a solid 90 minute set by Chris Priestly who to my surprise dropped the Reggae classic 54-46 was my number!!! This had some in raptures and left some baffled as to what was going on!!! All the same it brought a smile to my face as I had to concede that playing this track certainly broke up the night for me and made me sit up and take notice!!! There seemed to be a heated discussion taking place in the DJ booth at this point between Chris, Jim and a female clubber, I don’t know what it was over but hopefully it was all in good fun.
Chris then rounded off the evening with a further dose of the usual Seductive fare and it was at this point shortly before 3am that I took my leave.
Soul Control Verdict:
Seductive Soul provides a cast iron and enjoyable night out for Soul music connoisseurs on a monthly basis. Don’t expect anything spectacular here, which isn’t such a bad thing as I would rather know what I’m getting for my money on a night out than to go somewhere where it’s out-of-this-world one month and dire the next. The good ship Seductive rolls on next month Saturday May 17th and is well worth a look.
Soul Control Rating:
