Darlaston Soul Dayer

Well thank God for this one! After several months of frankly totally underwhelming events finally one that delivered the goods. I've been to what seems like endless, poorly attended halls, clubs and social centres to hear the same old House For Sale, Name It You Got It and Standing On Solid Ground, sometimes each more than once a night while a dozen people danced and I was starting to wonder if I had post-pandemic fatigue, or if it was just that people were just so damn glad to be able to go out again they'd be happy with that 100 Greatest Hits of Northern Soul from ASDA and a patch of lino to dance on. Although on the plus side I haven't actually heard I Wanna Give You Tomorrow since probably September! Of course everything being cancelled last minute thanks to Omicron didn't help matters but even some rather hyped up events that managed to go ahead didn't really feel that interesting - playing to the floor all night is fine and it's great to see people enjoying themselves but it was all starting to feel like that episode of Father Ted where the DJ only had one record and plays it again and again all night, finishing with "Please stand for our National anthem" and playing it again. I couldn't bring myself to review these gigs either because they were bloody trying their best to keep the torch burning in the most extreme of circumstances. 

Anyway enough of all that misery - this was great, perfect venue, dark and atmospheric, sprung wood floor, good DJ line up, surprisingly pre-pandemic price, decent crowd, nice to see a few faces back out from the last decade. Highlights for me were Carl Jones with a really interesting set of largely underplayed dancers, Rob Smith who never fails to play the right thing but still keeps it interesting and, the pièce de résistance, Jordan Wilson who is surely the future - underplayed, unreleased, unknown and even the classics; Just Brothers and L Allen in one set, just wow, but follow that up with International GTO's and it was two and a half minutes of pure post-pandemic joy (something I've not experienced this decade) to hear that blasting out in this atmospheric building, it almost felt like the 2 years wait was all worth it.

Sounds like this will carry on bi-monthly too which, as long as they keep the DJ's interesting and varied, should be a good bet.

Edited January 26, 20223 yr by Timillustrator