Notion went undercover to capture the gossip, collaborations and shenanigans that emerged when the genre’s biggest stars gathered for an 18 hour mash up in Edinburgh, to celebrate 20 years of dance and 21 years of Gio Goi clubwear. Words by Abigail Outhwaite.
Upon arrival, Notion was ushered to the Gio Goi VIP area, where a host of hand-picked DJs were spinning the decks from the top floor of the brand’s white Routemaster, whilst the likes of Jeremy Healy, Black Box and Shaun Ryder propped up the VIP bar and reminisced over BBQ food and pic ‘n mix sweets.
With the festival starting at midday (an hour when only the most hardcore would brave watching djs outdoors), Notion and the dedicated early bird crowds were treated to exceptionally intimate sets, before acquainting themselves with the fairground rides, oxygen bars and food vans scattered about the site.
After a couple of hours spent hobnobbing in the VIP area, Notion witnessed an enlightening set by Peter Hook (of Joy Division and New Order fame) in the Hacienda tent, with an audience of no more than thirty. Referencing both contemporary and classic tracks, Hook layered thick, throbbing house beats over some of Joy Division’s best tracks, before spinning remixes of MGMT’s ‘Kids’, David Bowie’s ‘Rebel Rebel’ and laying an assortment of Lady Gaga tracks over Queen’s ‘Radio Ga Ga’.
Afterward, Notion headed back to the Gio Goi bus and arrived just in time to hear the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder tell a gaggle of VIPs an outlandish anecdote about what he alleges is his current residence – a green wheelie bin in Manchester’s crime-ridden Mosside suburb. But, before there was chance to elaborate, Ryder was whisked away to the Hacienda tent, where a packed-in crowd awaited his live PA, which he –rather dubiously- delivered amongst a shower of silver confetti.
Several songs and a twisted melon later, Notion happened upon an unlikely celebrity punter, in the shape of The View’s Steven Morrison, who - somewhat surprisingly - admitted that he was eagerly anticipating Carl Cox’s oldskool set. Before we could express our dubious surprise, Lisa Lashes (who’s set would later wow the Kiddstock arena) bustled into the green room, accompanied by Above & Beyond. “It sounds like it’s going to be a pretty crazy night.” She gushed airily.
Notion was then treated to a natter Godskitchen Manager, Neil Navarra, over the pic ‘n mix bowl. “This is really exciting - I don’t think we’ll ever get a line-up like this ever again. We’ve got an amazing cross-section of people from the last twenty years; I’m like a kid in a sweet shop.”
“I’m especially looking forward to catching up with a lot of people I haven’t seen in a long while – I’ve got so many friends who are djs that I don’t get a chance to catch up and have a drink with, but tonight I might actually get a chance to,” he told us, before running off to do just that with Above & Beyond.
After diving into the pic ‘n mix bowl for our twentieth sugar rush of the evening, we whisked off to catch the end of Adamski’s set, where he and Jeremy Healy shared the decks for the last few tracks. “It’s nice running into people I haven’t seen for like 18 years,” Adamski admitted when Notion collared him afterwards.
While milling about the festival site later on, we caught up with long-standing Streetrave comrade, Hooligan X, who was reminiscing about the Hacienda years: “The last time I was with Shaun [Ryder] was in 1989. Me, him and Bez were coming out of the Hacienda and we were going to The Kitchen, right in the middle of Mosside, but we couldn’t get in so we went to a club called Buttons. A couple of weeks later, someone was shot outside of it.”
And on that happy note, we joined the throng of neon-clad dance lovers, to spill into the Godskitchen vs. Colours arena, to find the newly-reformed Orbital wowing the crowd with an emotional and euphoric set.
If anything was to banish the clubbers-fatigue Notion began to experience as we came down from such a blinding return, it could only have been a 20-year-old set from Godskitchen mainstayer Carl Cox. Attended by what must have been the majority of the festival’s punters, it even included a wry nod to Colours’ birthplace, with bagpipe samples signalling the finale.
Safe in the knowledge that we had witnessed a live, blow-by-blow soundtrack of dance’s 20 year history, and having ticked off about half of our ‘people we’d like to see before we die’ lists, Notion retired into the strobes, to soak up the last of the birthday celebrations.
