Events

‘Performing music is a fundamental and important part of any musician’s journey'(Stormer Music, 2019)

On March 30th, I went to an event called Distortion, one of the biggest raves in the UK. It was hosted in a multi stage venue and had a line up involving almost every single big artist that you could think of from the UK Bass scene.

 

On April 13th, I went to an event called Bass6ix, which was a limited capacity, small UK Bass rave. It featured many of the same DJs as Distortion, however it was still a very different event.

 

Even though the main genre was the same, there were some very key differences between Bass6ix and Distortion. For one, it was a much smaller venue, which means that it was a lot easier to run into the same people you might have already met at the event, or previous events. Also, a lot of the audience consisted of the DJs that were performing, which means that you can run into people like Livsey, Kryphon, or NLMT, some of the biggest artist in the UK Bass scene at the  moment, all of which I met and spoke to. Having a smaller venue makes the event a lot more sociable, which I honestly really enjoyed quite a bit more than Distortions massive multi stage venue. However, even though there are a lot less people, theres even less space, making it hotter, and sometimes way more uncomfortable.  Distortion on the other hand had a huge smoking area, where you could go outside and take a break, giving you a chance to cool down, something that was dearly missed at Bass6ix.

Another difference was the energy of the event. Trying to describe the energy of an event is quite difficult, to understand it best you would have to have gone to the event itself. I will try my best though. Bass6ix was a very high energy event, the music was fast paced and energetic through from the first set to the last. This meant that being near the front, which I was for the majority of the event, meant you would be dancing, dragged into mosh pits, screaming at your friends who are right next to you and still not being able to understand a word they’re saying, pretty much the entire time. Compared to distortion, which seemed to start off a lot slower, playing Dubs for the first few sets, and then moving onto the much harder and aggressive music later on. This meant that there was much more space for different genres and styles of music, making the event more appealing to a larger audience.

Because of its larger line up, Distortion managed to push tickets out for upwards of £30 to £50, which is fairly expensive in the world of UK Bass, whilst Bass6ix only ran me a cost of around £20, but it was limited capacity event, and therefore way more exclusive than Distortion was.