After Action Report: Hospitality At Matter

I bloody love Hospital Records. I love all the Hospital producers and I really love Hospitality. I've been to every one of the Matter Hospitalities bar the first and so far I've always had a really good time, and last Friday was no exception.



Turned up late to the Dome on Friday having been to see the Cinematic Orchestra over at the Camden Roundhouse, so unfortunately we missed Beardyman (apparently he was awesome) and Matrix. It wasn't all fail though, because we also managed to miss Fabio. Result!

We arrived just as London Elektricity was getting going, followed by High Contrast, who both smashed it as usual. We retreated to THE CAAAGE for a bit more space during HC's set and hung around the edges for Danny Byrd. I dunno if the number of tickets sold has been increased or something, but Matter definitely felt more rammed than usual. No room on the dancefloor for dancing and lots of shoving and pointy elbows instead. Perhaps I'm just getting old. Stuck my head in briefly to Room 2, but whoever was dubstepping it up in there almost sent me to sleep. Wish I'd caught D-Bridge's set though!

By the time Cyantific came on, we'd managed to smash our way to the front. This definitely proved worthwhile, because it's only when you get on to the dancefloor that you really feel the sub bass shreading your knees and whatnot. Ed Rush was on last to finish off the night, but everyone was really starting to lag a bit and we ended up calling it a night around half five, which was a bit of a shame.

I still quite like Matter as a venue, despite the fact it's always a bloody mission to get home from. However, I think I'll be taking a break from the Matter Hospitalities for a while. Although the beer prices have always been a rip off, £4.50 is just too fucking much for a bottle of Stella, and the crowd there seems to be pretty angry most of the time. Perhaps these two problems are related? My other problem with Matter is that I always feel really disconnected from the DJs/music. Room 2 doesn't have this problem as much, and nor do the Ram nights where the DJs are set up in the cage thingy rather than up on the stage. Perhaps it's all just a bit too big? Kinda makes me miss The End.

Hopefully taking a break from Matter will allow me to return there feeling refreshed and start to enjoy myself a bit more. Despite all my whining, Hospitality really is a great night and last Friday was throughly splendid and worthwhile. Wish there were more London-based Hospital nights though!