Method

Method w/ Eliphino and Le Jockey: 24^th Jan 2013 @ Fez Club

Believe it or not, this is an exciting time for Cambridge nightlife. All too frequently we are caught gleefully revelling in the overt mediocrity that clubs in this city have to offer, happily stumbling between Cindies, Life and Lola’s and back again, just glad to have a night on the booze irrespective of our mundane surroundings.

But it need not be like this, and indeed seems to be increasingly less so: change is about, and it comes in the form of Fez’s resurfacing dominance as the home of good music in Cambridge. And last night, the brand that embodied this notion all too sweetly was Method. With a double-booking that combined a superstar and a rising-star of the house music scene, the tone was set perfectly for another memorable night of electronic music on Cambridge’s biggest club sound-system.

After Loadlite dropped an hour set to warm-up the punters who’d braved queuing in arctic conditions, Napper got the party started properly at 11. With an eclectic mix of deep house minimalism and bouncy disco beats, the Rudimental boss got things moving swiftly, keeping it fairly light-hearted through a smattering of funk and soul gold. By the time resident DJ and Method co-founder Koko Kitscha took to the decks, the crowd of sweaty bodies was swelling and the queue outside was snaking around the block.

The relentless four-to-the-floor beats and bass-lines resumed and continued through to Joah, Rudimental resident and the man behind Method. The vibe stayed very much underground throughout, only surfacing briefly for crowd-pleasing anthems such as Mosca’s Eva Mendes and Julio Bashmore’s Au Seve.

Eliphino took to the stage at 1:30, with the crowd fervent and bubbling after three and a half hours of intoxicating house. I’d been informed that a needle on the vinyl decks was broken prior to Eliphino’s headline set, but not even a knowledgeable critic would have noticed – the sound flowed from track to track as smoothly as ever. The music policy remained strictly deep house, the all-consuming bass-driven sound giving way to moments of sheer euphoria as scene-definers such as George Fitzgerald’s Child and Eliphino’s own masterpiece More Than Me forced their way out of the speakers and into the waiting ears of the ecstatic masses.

MC Katya kept things intimate with engaging enthusiasm and her trademark mike-hype, and ensured the crowd remained buzzed with their raving boots firmly on for the arrival of Le Jockey. As the big name star made way for the talented up-and-coming producer, the vibe got more industrial with a dose of techno to sharpen its edges. The array of vinyl cuts laid down by the Cambridge man was impressive, and demonstrated a heartening commitment to the scene from a local angle.

Following on from the success of other such student-run brands like Rudimental and Klubnacht, it appears that Method has placed a considerably-sized pin in the nightlife map. And once again, it is encouraging to see such dedication towards bringing exciting new music, exported from the UK’s big cities, to our smaller clubs of Cambridge. For that Fez, we salute you.