Carrey's & Lloyds Reunion @ Jabez Clegg 24th August 2008
Review - Neil
Its August Bank Holiday Sunday night in Manchester, the weathers dry, the temperatures fine and its party time!! There were 3 nights in Manchester to choose from, Label, Relish and Jabez Clegg. Surely this was too many on one night?
I wasn’t planning on going out with the credit crunch and all, but I thought fuck it, I’ll go to the Cheap Man’s night out, the Jabez Clegg one!!! It was only a fiver to see Leaky Fresh, a Manchester legend and I thought to myself even if the night didn’t turn out too good, it was only a bluey down the u-bend so I had nothing to lose!!!.
Now this night was held in Jabez Clegg which is located just off Oxford Road near the promoter’s last venue Moso Moso where they held their Elegance events. Jabez is a club on the student scene that I’ve heard quite a lot about over the years, but one I’ve never actually been in. Keeping with the theme of the Cheap Man’s night out, another plus-point for me going was that Jabez is a student pub and the chances were that we’d be paying student prices at the bar as well; you know a pound-a-pint and all that!!! The only down-side to that though is it’s usually followed by fast-flowing rivers of vomit!!!
Me and my girlfriend turned up around 11pm and the numbers in the club were not too bad either, I’d say around 100. The club night was held in two rooms upstairs. There was a small room playing Reggae and Bashment which was hosted by Hussla Ghetto Hart and the main was room playing early 90’s revival R&B which was hosted by Leaky Fresh, GTI & Bullitz aka BLZ. There was a small PA rig on stage in middle of largish dance-floor and the bar was situated to the right of where we came in and this is where most people were congregated.
The night was dubbed Carrey’s and Lloyds 90’s revival. I never had the pleasure of going to Carrey’s wine bar but I did however go Lloyds a few times and this was my first experience of clubbing and I loved it there. First on the decks were GTI and Bullitz. I was enjoying this set which was a good mix of up-tempo 90’s jams. The highlight for me though was hearing Skee-lo - I wish which is a funny track!!! They also played some Mica Paris classics. By 12am there were good numbers in Jabez which I’d now estimate at 250 and people started dancing. The MC was quite entertaining, I think it was Bullitz. He was walking around with his microphone and was handing out whistles ala 'Soul Control'?
The next set was more Swing based. I’ve personally been crying out for more Swing Beat on the Manchester scene for ages and the debate has raged on Soul Control’s website for some time. Personally, I loved it but the crowd didn’t seem at all interested in it which is why T2 Bad pointed out to me some time ago that no Manchester based DJ’s really bother with Swing Beat. Tracks by Keith sweat, TLC, Kut Klose, Mary J Blige, Snoop Dog, 112, Total and Adina Howard were the main diet for the evening. The crowd were mainly older and from the Carrey’s and Lloyds era mixed in with some younger ‘Urban’ looking guys and some students looking peeps as well!!
The next rotation was Leaky Fresh who came on around 12.30am and he slowed things down somewhat with a mellow set. It was all very nice, but I would say it wasn’t that good to dance to, hence most people buggered off to the Bashment room!!! From here-on-in, the night in the main arena never seemed to live up to its early promise and never caught fire. Rarely did the dance-floor look full with most people standing near the bar and entrance and just nodding their collective heads. This worried the DJ’s who tried in vain to encourage the masses to dance, but try as they might the majority of the crowd who were left in this room just wouldn’t move!!!
Having said that, the Bashment room was heaving and was definitely the more successful of the two rooms!!! I don’t know if it was planned or whether it was a last-ditched desperate measure by the promoters, but the Bashment room was surprisingly and rather hastily closed at around 2am which forced everyone into the main room by default!!!! Leaky once again was on the decks and again played some 'Soul Nation Radio' classics, but again they were slow jams and the crowd were just continuing with the infamous Manchester ‘Head-Nod’ rather than raving like we all were at the Soul Control’s party at Moso Moso a few weeks earlier.
Leaky just came to play the music he liked from the 90’s rather than just dropping dance-floor fillers which I admired. This is why it was such a pleasure to hear On The Contrary – Love to Love. The MC promised to pick up the tempo, but the DJ'd response was to play Ginuwine-Pony followed by even more slow jams!!!! Ha-ha!!! They also played a crap mix of Happy by Surface which did no justice to the original at all!!!
Bullitz wanted someone to take a photo of the night for the Soul Control website which was odd because he never wanted anyone to take photos of his failed Elegance night at Moso Moso!!!!! I didn’t bring a camera but at least a Soul Control reviewer was there so hey!!! Having said that, if anyone did take any pictures of Jabez, we will be more than happy to post them with this review to give a flavour of the night. Up to this point, the sound system had not been that bad, but I noticed a couple of the speakers fading in and out toward the end and this signalled the end of the night for me & Mrs Neil!!!
Soul Control Verdict:
I left Jabez Clegg about 3am with an hour of the night still to go. For me the night was good, but the dance-floor never caught fire. No doubt the DJ’s had the tracks, but they just didn’t integrate them well enough!!! On the rare occasions the Elegance boys built up any momentum, they would quickly lose it again which was very frustrating, but hey you get what you pay for so it’s hard to complain seeing as it was only a fiver to get in on a Bank Holiday Sunday!!!
Elegance has moved to Jabez Clegg and was good enough for a one night special, but for a regular monthly spot I’m not so sure!!! Jabez Clegg was a decent venue I thought, but was it worth a fiver? Yeah, I’ll give the Elegance Boyz dat one. Considering there were two other events on the same night, at around 250 people they did pull in a reasonable crowd considering their Moso Moso efforts, but this was probably due to Barca being cancelled or the bargain basement cost of the Cheap Man’s night out & the several free tickets that were given away to boost numbers!!!!
Soul Control Rating:
