Found this on I Vibes... Review on Matt Hardwick 5 hr night... BACKGROUND Promise is held at a reasonably sized venue in the centre of Newcastle every Friday night. It is only about a 5 minute walk from Newcastle central station, say the same distance Gatecrasher is from Sheffield Station. This makes it pretty easy for visitors from elsewhere around the country to sample the delights of this wonderful little club. The Club it is held at is called Foundation, which is more famous around the area for hosting Shindig on a Saturday, one of the north’s premier house/progressive nights. The club has a very underground feel to it, metal beams and dark corners galore. The actual dance floor itself is a cross between Code and Gatecrasher’s future room, but not as long. There is one bar on the right hand side of the main room downstairs. Upstairs there is a large balcony with seating which surrounds the main floor and also a funky room that is located above the main entrance and foyer area that also includes a bar. The main room music is very varying, usually a more “underground” sound to trance if I can get away with saying that without being flamed by prog and techno heads the world over. Hardhouse, Hardtrance, Techno, Progressive and Trance all share an equal share of the Line-up-cake at this club Entry is normally £10 or £9 for students/members but this changes on different nights depending on line-up. Usually open 10-3 with 1 or 2 nights a month being open until 4am. THE NIGHT We got there early, I was expecting small queues as usually there isn’t that great amount of people at the start of the night, but there was hardly anyone at all. Not totally unexpected though, as the DJ in question isn’t a great “crowd puller” regardless of his superior DJing skills. Anyway we got inside and the club was darkly lit, the club slowly filled up as most people had arrived by 11-12, by witch point a lot of the lighting had come into play. There is a lot of good visualisations in the club considering it’s size, the random TV screens behind the bar are a unique touch, along with projection screens above the DJ box. Matt Hardwick started off with a lot of funky progressive, moving onto trancey progressive like James Holden – Nothing (Returning 93 mix) and similar style nuggets. At about 12ish he cranked up the pace a little and starting into the quality melodic trance he has manipulated into his most heard style, also mixed in with classics like Marco V – Simulated. He gradually carried on getting more and more uplifting and faster paced from there till about 2am. The laser came on at this point which still is used to great effect within the size of dancefloor. Within this time I expected more people to arrive but I was wrong, the club was very much empty, which I can’t complain against because there was plenty of room to dance, but also half the dance floor at the back was clear which gave an eerie feel to the night! But this obviously hadn’t dented the great atmosphere the club has, as many of my friends from Crasher who were visiting for the first time said it was a great night and the people were really friendly, so there you go! After 2am Hardwick went onto the harder edged trance tunes and some of the tunes people associate with him best, Green Martian Industry being one of my particular faves, along with Crimson Soil! At this point the club was even more empty than before but this didn’t spoil what was a great finish to the night, with some of Matt’s fave tracks, and ending the night on the Ferry Corsten remix of Barber’s Adagio, summed up what had been a great 5 hour set by Sir Matt. OVERVIEW Overall a great night, the emptiness made it somewhat eerie but the night was still amazing and I could tell from the happy people who left the place at 3:30am. Luckily I have experienced the club on other nights, and it is sill a great night out. At only 2 years old, and such a varied style of music and crowd, the club can do nothing else than get better. With a new monthly Saturday night in Hull, and vs. Goodgreef nights on occasions, the club is beginning to cement itself further afield. I would even be so bold as to say it is one of the best Friday nights I have been to in the country, if not the best. Its only handicap is being far up in the north, but still it is a night that is a definate one to go to, specially if you have friends who are in the Nu_castle area! Go there! By Ste Wilkinson Upcoming Promise events include Yoji Biomehanika, Dave Seaman & Scot Project. Full schedule to come shortly. http://www.ivibes.nu/index.php?article=1851
