Wax:On Leeds 25/10/0

"Big Beats are the best, get high all the time"
- The Big Beat Manifesto

The man who would become Fatboy Slim was born Quentin Leo Cook on July 1963. Now Quentin is obviously a very dorky name, so the big beat pioneer did the obvious thing and changed it. To Norman. Whoops.

Wax:On appears to have recovered from its brief flirtation with skinny jeans, Mission and Sundays. It sidled back into the forgiving embrace of the union like a guilty husband who had a bit too much fun on a business trip. In the place of empty promises and supermarket flowers it attempted to appease poor Stylus with a Halloween fancy dress special. And jolly good it was too. It was very cute that many of the acts on the line up seemed to have been booked because they have vaguely Halloweeny names (Disco Bloodbath, Fake Blood, the Bloody Beetroots), but they missed a trick by not getting Skream involved.

The heavily hyped Japanese Popstars are an elusive bunch. So elusive in fact, that they completely failed to show up. The Plump DJs and the Bloody Beetroots were the big headliners in the main room, and performed admirably, but for many the main draw of the night was to be found lower down the bill and tucked away in room 2.

The no show by the Jappy Pops (as they're apparently known in Derry) lead many to abandon Stylus in favour of Mine, and we were welcomed with open arms by Wax:On's newest superstar resident DJ, Mr Martin Doorly esq. He’s a guy who really knows what he’s doing. You’d be happily dancing along and then all of a sudden he’d nonchalantly slip in something like ‘Breathe’ by The Prodigy, that Caspa mix of ’Where’s My Money’ or ‘Never Be Alone’ as if it’s no big thing. And obviously it is. Predictably, everyone lost their minds. Magnificent.

How good is Mine by the way? The answer? Very very good. I love it in there! It's all cool and tunnel shaped and there are nice sofas if you want a little rest. Perfect.

When the first Fake Blood remixes started to surface on them internets about a year ago they got a lot of knickers very twisted. Not only were the tracks all unbelievably strong, but this Mr. Blood chap was keeping his identity a closely guarded secret. Word got out that it was a side project by an established act, rather than just some guy (like Burial), and names started getting tossed about willy nilly.

A lot of people were really totally sure it was a new alias of Norman Cook, others had been told by a bloke who knows a guy that it was Armand Van Helden, someone told me it was a super group made up of Tiesto, Diplo, Banksy, Batman and Lord Lucan. What a fuss. Then everyone found out that it was Theo Keating (DJ Touche) all along. When he started DJing as Fake Blood, Keating didn't bother with a mask or any silliness like that, and his secret identity was forever compromised. Obviously his set was ace, he played nice bassy tunes that had the crowd in Mine bouncing very happily along. He gave it 110% and, fair play to the boy, at the end of the day that's all we can ask.

But enough of the things of the past! Let us leave them bouncing on their spacehoppers with Timmy Mallett and look instead to the glorious future, to a time of hovercars, teleportation and armies of eager subservient robots to cater to our every whim.

In November Wax:On is filling the union with a smorgasbord of tasty treats to tantalise even the tricksiest tastebuds. Annie Mac is helming this bejewelled behemoth, spoiling us with everyone's favourite Teutonic twosome in the form of Digitalism, lovely retro Ladyhawke and one of the most impressively bearded men to ever squelch a bassline, the Don Corleone of fidget house, Switch. The deliciously voluptuous line up also includes DJ Zinc, Brodinski, Plastician, Digital Mystikz and the effervescent Doorly. I, for one, am already moist with excitement.

Hail Xenu

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