Quality Of Soulirish Club Nottm

Last night's QoS showed it going from strength to strength, both musically and in the numbers attending.

I went by train to St Neots where I met Irish and travelled on by car to Nottingham. We were early so went in a pub just up the road from the Irish Centre, it was absolutely rammed, a major effort to get to the bar.

When we'd finished our drinks we went to the Irish Centre, paid our money and went into the downstairs room. The first two people I saw were Nige Brown and Carms; I hadn't seen them for ages so we had a really good catchup.

I think there were 10 DJs appearing, but I missed some sets because I stayed in the downstairs rare and Crossover room, not going upstairs until about 3am. I forgot to pick up the list of DJ times so at this moment not sure of running order so won't go into detail about each set. Suffice to say that the music was of a very high quality with a wide variety of tempos and styles. Plenty of tunes I knew, but loads that I didn't and quite a few that I couldn't put a title or artiste to. So nothing new there. Among the records played were: Speed Up, Beginning Of My Life, Yes I'm In Love, Suffering Wrath, Too Late, I'm A Lonely Man, Do You Get The Message, The Hurting Is Over, Keep Away, Isn't It Just A Shame, My Prayer, A 1000 Wonders and many more. It was good to see and hear the set played by Russ Vickers, thanks for the Precisions, and thanks to Cliff Steele who played my favourite oldie in the middle of his set, Ooh Boy, and I didn't even ask him to play it, cheers. I danced to a few records but have been having problems with arthritis in my right leg so took it very easy.

At about 3am I thought I'd better pop upstairs to see what was happening there. It was very busy with the dance floor going full pelt. Marc Forrest had just started his upstairs set, playing a mix of classics, e.g. I'm Coming Home In The Morning and rare tracks like I Won't Be Coming Back, You've Been Cheating and Nothing's Too Good For My Baby. Thanks for playing the latter at my request Marc. Andy Dyson followed Marc and again played a mix of classic and rare ones.

At this point I realised I'd left my coat and bag downstairs, forgetting the room would be locked. Luckily Mick and Mandy had moved all the coats, etc. and Mandy had my stuff, thanks to you both.

Mick did the last hour, similar mix to the two previous DJs. Before you knew what had happened it was time to leave. Irish and I made our farewells and left to the sound of Count The Days.

In my opinion it was a really good night, both musically and socially, good to see so many of my soul scene friends. Things started off quietly but filled up downstairs and as I've said above the upstairs room was really busy. I hope that people continue to support QoS; the people who like the rarer sounds are a small minority of what is a comparatively small musical scene. If we don't attend these type of nights sooner or later they'll stop. What will we do then?

Thanks to Irish for the lift, and of course to Mick and co and their helpers for the night.