New Years Nights out

Its that time of year again.  When we are all thinking about what we will be doing tonight at midnight.  Over the years i have tried it all: clubs, bars, family, house parties, restaurants and even in bed asleep.

All of the above have their own merits and negatives.  Below is a list of my more memorable  NYE club nights out:

• Dance 1992 at Farnborough Rec.  Not a clue on which DJs were on.  I spent most of the time in the house room as never the biggest fan of hardcore.  Most memorable tune of the night.  Zero B - Lock up.  Funniest moment was seeing a friend from Farnham Art College Mcing on the hardcore stage.  Funniest verse was ' Old Mcdonald took an E, E I E I O'.

• Troll reunion at The Soundshaft 1993.  With DJs Mrs Wood and Blu Peter.  Most memorable tune of the night was the Reactivate tune which sampled the Jaws theme tune.  Imagine a club filled with dry ice, strobe lights and then this Jaws music comes in.  Spooky.

• Trade 1994 at Turnmills.  Not 100% sure on which DJs where on as the music progression was not the same as a normal night.  Still an amazing night.  Highlights being the live PA by Carol Leeming. I also managed to last over 14 hours of almost constant dancing.  This was also the first night I heard the classic 'Waterfall - Atlantic Ocean".

• The Zap - Brighton 1995.  The only DJ that I really remember from this night was Phil Perry (Full Circle).  He was very good and a lot harder than I expected.

• Trade at The Leisure Lounge 1996.   Technically this was actually New Years Day.  We spent nearly four hours queuing up outside the Leisure Lounge from 6am NYD.  As much fun as the queue was who wants to be in one for four hours.  We found out when we got in that the night which had been on before Trade.  Hadn't finished on time.  Then they venue ran out of tickets for the coat check.  when we eventually got in there was nowhere to leave our coats.  All in all we spent max 2 hours in the club.  The journey home with our friend Jo was one of the funniest car journeys Ive ever had.  We drove around the Elephant ans Castle roundabout about 20 times.  Poor Stuart.  Lesson learnt.  Trade at other venues didn't work at this time.

• The Glasshouse - Leeds 1999.  This is another event that was actually New Years day (2000) not the Eve.  This amazing night took place at Space in Leeds.  The crowd was mainly hardcore Leeds clubbers who had been up since NYE.  Rob Tissera was the standout DJ on the night.  Best records were Eurythmics - sweet Dreams (Hard House mix) and Quake - The day will come (fab vocal trance).

• Speed Queen  Leeds 2001.  As usual Suzy and Kaz put on an excellent night.  I missed the midnight moment due to being with another group of friends at a fantastic fish restaurant.  To be honest I always find the midnight moment a bit annoying.  So it was actually good to arrive at the club at 1 am.  Best DJ of the night.  Tin Tin of course.  Midnight tune (according to friends) was Lisa Lisa and cult Jam - let the beat hit em (house mix).  My favourite tune was Praised Cats - Shine on me.