Music On. Why does Marco Carola's roster of DJs love the tits off it? Because the crowd go absolutely bonkers for their craft. And why can't clubbers get enough of it? Because don Marco Carola and his crew know how to tap into their psyches and stay there until it comes to a shuddering close.
That's the truth of the matter, and the cult following he's gained had already been achieved a few seasons back. On Friday, with the first instalment of Marco's two-part closing party, we were giving an amped-up cheerio to season six. Across the residency's 20 dates this summer, we've had rendezvous with regulars Neverdogs, Joey Daniel, Stacey Pullen, Apollonia, Miss Kittin, Paco Osuna and Leon. Big one-off appearances have come in from Carl Cox, Matthias Tanzmann and The Martinez Brothers, and we've had debuts from Derrick May, Lauren Lane, Claude VonStroke, Felix Da Housecat and John Acquaviva. It's been pretty damn tasty.
On Friday, the guests in for a big taste of Music On exposure were Oxia and Miss Kittin in the Main Room, and out on the Terrace it was Leon followed by Stacey Pullen before Carola finished us off. In for just before 2:00, it was the turn of French pinwheel Oxia in the light-evading Main Room and he was ploughing in deep for crowd appraisal with Alan Nieves' tech house bumper Back & Forth. Considering that two females relentlessly exploded with high-pitched wails for a solid twenty minutes, you'd have to conclude that he was meeting and exceeding his job requirements. They weren't the only ones producing outward displays of pleasure, of course. If you've been to any Music On events, you'll know that Amnesia houses a passionate bunch on Fridays.
At this hour, the Main Room was nicely full without anyone having the misfortune of being so close to me that they'd smell I´d gone a bit too mental with the garlic cloves. Music On gets absolutely packed, so I was more than happy to ride Oxia's set while it remained easy to physically get into the groove. Chugging, penetrative tech house is the sonic juice he fed through the mixer, with Stefano Noferini's galloping remix of ARTSLAVES' Blackbird and Proudly People's beat-shooting track Can You Repeat It. Seamless transitions between a selection of elevating tech house records made for enjoyable consumption by the majority. However, my enthusiasm for it began to ebb as for my taste, I found it to be monotonous.
Squeezing onto the Terrace one fleshy inch at a time, Detroit dicer Stacey Pullen was churning out the kind of sonic dust I was after. Whistles of appreciation pierced the air as Nick Curly's monster record The Voodoo gathered heat with the steady, steely bassline offering a guidance for when one should stomp to the beat. It seemed as if the crowd exhaled breaths of bliss in unison as he dropped in Seb LeBrox's house puncher I Know Angels, and from there, I left them to crack on while I got a piece of Miss Kittin.
Squeezing onto the Terrace one fleshy inch at a time, Detroit dicer Stacey Pullen was churning out the kind of sonic dust I was after. Whistles of appreciation pierced the air as Nick Curly's monster record The Voodoo gathered heat with the steady, steely bassline offering a guidance for when one should stomp to the beat. It seemed as if the crowd exhaled breaths of bliss in unison as he dropped in Seb LeBrox's house puncher I Know Angels, and from there, I left them to crack on while I got a piece of Miss Kittin.
I haven't seen Miss Kittin kickin' the arse out a sound system for some time, so it was wicked to hear her dumping some proper dance floor dirt. Supercharged with verve, I found her Main Room fodder to be the most fulfilling as each track pounced in to scratch at your thighs. With a keen taste for Catz ‘N Dogz' ammo, we had their remix of Marlena Shaw's Woman Of The Ghetto and Geeeman's Wanna Go Bang, before she slipped in Richy Ahmed's pounding spinner remix of Kollektiv Turmstrasse's Sorry I Am Late. And a huge highlight was having her on the mic and belting the vocals to Inner City's Good Life.
As the clock ticked 4:00 it was time for Music On chief, Carola. Now, I´ve recently rediscovered classic platform game Rayman - admittedly becoming a little too obsessed - and it struck me that dance floor encounters are not too dissimilar from getting into a gaming combat, especially when it's as brutally busy as Music On is. You're literally fighting your way through, looking for instant rewards, with the end goal being getting to the big boss. Fighting my way to get to the best spot possible to have a standoff against Carola's sonic weaponry is no easy feat, but it was essential.
Strapping myself into position next to a pillar, I got into the beat with the thousands of diehard Marco fiends to be fed an outpouring of bouncing, bassline heavy tech house. From Sante Sansone's Where Love Lives to Chris Wood's Back Down, he had the Terrace ensnared with the crack of his whip. Everyone knows that if you stick in and stick around, you'll be chucked an anthemic curveball or two, and tonight it was to be Mousse T's Feel Much Better mix of Shakedown's At Night and C + C Music Factory's Gonna Make You Sweat. The response? Massive. For me personally, I find these tracks to edge into cheesy territory and tracks I´d leave to mainstream music clubs, but that'll have been an opinion shared by the minority. Regardless of what I thought, those were standout moments that hyped up the thousands in there that were sweating for six. Job done, as far as Carola's concerned.
It's clear to see that Music On isn't imploding anytime soon, and as this is published, I'd imagine there are some muscle-beaten clubbers recovering from Part 2 of those Music On closings. See you in 2018.
