Mojo Soul Club

I hadn't been to Mojo for a few months due to other events (it's a popular date the 3rd/4th Saturday) so good to come here again.

It was interesting to look back as well - last month was the Big Birmingham Soul Night at Birmingham Town Hall; an amazing venue but a very disappointing night - only one room (advertised as two), not that packed, no access to the balcony and all for £12!, two months ago was Aaron Williams' inaugural Macabre Soul - blistering event of 100mph dancers, young, loud, dark, fast but quite a trek to nearly the Welsh border and only apparently an occasional do. So if perhaps Birmingham Town Hall is the past and Macabre Soul is (hopefully?!) the future, this is the present. 

Always a really diverse and interesting DJ line up here; rarely the same guests and usually at least three of them; I must admit I was initially disappointed that Brian Rae was unable to attend due to illness as I was looking forward to seeing him again and on the previous occasions I've seen Soul Sam he seemed to play almost exclusively Modern stuff (not really my cup of tea) but it just goes to show that you shouldn't listen to your prejudices because he played anything but - can't recall much of it but a couple of Ted Massey 'exclusives' were in there as well as some other thundering tunes. Missed the first set completely but Terry Shaw and Rob Smith delivered the goods and John Stackhouse is always excellent; I've only heard John and John Weston play Bobby Williams - I've Only Got Myself To Blame but if that was the only song I heard all night it would be worth the entrance fee.

All the other usual stuff- cheap bar, nice crowd, some great dancers. A consistently good night and one you have to travel some distance to match.

Drew both DJ's and a local dancer, Dave who seems to pop up everywhere west of Birmingham. 

I rarely give 5 stars - I've noticed that often reviews are by people connected with the event who inevitably give 5 stars to everything. I am trying to be objective.