*REVIEW*

Main Room & Lounge: Sven Vath, Chris Tietjen

AKA: The Shapeshifters, Liquid People, Simon Hawes

Review of the night written by Spacem8

Having heard about his antics in Birmingham the previous weekend, and not having seen him play before (yes, I should be punished), I finally had a chance to catch Sven Vath perform at his Cocoon Party at The End.  Following a rousing set from Chris Tietjen that had the crowd fired up, you could easily tell it was the turn of the main man judging from the reaction of the crowd – the DJ island was mobbed with adoring fans, packed solidly four people deep.  Vath drew the crowd into a frenzy waiting for the first break, which seemed to go on for absolutely ages but did the job, making the crowd explode into a high.

Now, I’d heard some of the stories of how Vath is a bit mad, but nothing prepared me for what a mentalist he actually is. As I returned from a break from checking out The Shapeshifters in AKA (who were on fantastic form and had the crowd eating out of their hands) back in the main room the techno was heavy and pounding. And Vath? Well, he was naked from the top up, his head was swathed in toilet paper, as were his hands (in what looked like faux boxing gloves); then quickly fashioning a turban from his T-shirt, he started ’vogueing’ and shouting along to the record; all of this whilst keeping an eye on the decks!  The night reaffirmed for me that I prefer the harder, faster and edgier techno sound Sven was playing - true to the original vision, rather than the current sound du jour - the more ponderous freewheeling minimal techno.

All in all, it gave a true representation of wonderful clubbing chaos at its best. I haven’t had so much fun in a long time, I’m all for techno with a bit of 'performance art' thrown in, and the crowd lapped it up. I’m definitely coming to the next Cocoon event!