After such good intentions with regard to getting to the club early (do i even need to finish that?!, you know how it goes...), great plans involving London night bus action came off slightly less efficient as first thought, and we arrived at Fabric to check out the Friday night of the world famous nightclub's celebration of it's tenth year in the game, just a tad late. I'd heard crazy things about the Farringdon area's number one attraction and the queues to get in but surprisingly they turned out to be untrue. We got in relatively easily, a great start to what was to be a stellar evening, as far as evenings go that start at midnight.

The weekend was extended for the special occasion, kicking off on Thursday night with the very anti-warmup starting squad of Andy C, DJ Hype, Caspa, Skream, Benga and more. Friday night, which I attended, consisted of a very eclectic lineup of Simian Mobile Disco, Filthy Dukes (DJ Set), The Subs (LIVE), Shinichi Osawa, DJ Craze, Scratch Perverts, DJ Zinc, Rusko, Baobinga. Saturday night included Craig Richards, Terry Francis, Andrew Weatherall, Ricardo Villalobos, Steve Bug, Michael Mayer, Ivan Smagghe, Mathew Jonson (LIVE), Daniel Bell
(DBX) (LIVE), Konrad Black, Swayzak (LIVE), Kenny Larkin (LIVE), Hipp-e, Halo, Fred Everything... whew. I can only think of the hearty massive that do all three nights, but who could blame the night owls who braved it, look at the pure quality on show. Closing time from sat night... 5am Monday morning.

We entered firstly to DJ Zinc shuffling along with some uk funky/brokenbeat action, sounding incredible on the Room Two system.
Zinc, spurred on by the bass heavy sounds of the likes of Sinden and Switch, has a new current sound, and while it's heavy - that doesn't mean it lacks soul or shuffle - and the only real way to hear it (you'll notice this is said frequently about various genre) - is on a large system. Across in the main room things were more than underway, with the Filthy Dukes laying down some of the sounds you would have heard on their FabricLive mix - number 48 in the series that has made the club just as famous to those that may have not had a chance to visit. If you visit Fabric's website, the dukes describe their ideal club night, and this mix, fairly parallel to the way this Friday night panned out... 'darker and heavier the later it gets'. And who can not enjoy themselves when one of the dj's is in a cat suit. He wasn't the only one avvin it large in animal style attire, with a mysterious panda creature lurking in the corners throughout the night. Great to see the staff celebrating the ten year milestone along with the crowd.

Back to room two where Dj Craze threw the kitchen sink at us, composed of classic crowd rattling hip hop, dubstep and wobbly fidget house.
You really can't go wrong with Roots Manuva's 'Witness' crabbed and slammed in with precision only a three time DMC champ such as himself could deliver. He also included beat juggling routines with uptempo house numbers, and pulled off a to-and-fro switch of Jack Beats that the combined members and fellow contemporaries Beni G and Plus One would have been proud of. While Baobinga rocked upstairs in the cosy Room 3, I had a chat to a few of the Japanese massive here for their hero Shinichi, which doubled as a great opportunity to practise my dodgy Nihongo. They are intensely proud of him and not afraid to let everyone know. As the Scratch Perverts thrashed us with an all-out Drum and Bass assault, which threatened to get borderline o.t.t. in heaviness and pace, (the crowd loved it) Shinichi finished things up with a ear splitting display of techno, electro and house that never gave the hardy and enduring crowd an inch or option to take a break from the oscillating dancefloor. A musically eclectic treat was the Friday night, that won't be forgotten anytime soon.

And a couple of photos from the night thanks to Sarah Ginn - www.myspace.com/sarahginn