The venue was completely packed upon entering and, in true Corsica form, was looking decidedly sweaty from early on, the smaller room hosting Charlie & Dave who had an energetic crowd engaged with their tech house. The fact that the residents were commandeering this room for most of the night meant, for a large chunk of the evening, they used this opportunity to play not just the warm-up tackle they're usually limited to, but a varied selection of deep house and techno usually reserved for peak-time slots as well.
In the equally busy main room, Shakir was doing his thing. The Detroit DJ has been making music for many years, and is renowned for a varied style, which was certainly on display throughout his set, with sounds that took listeners from the contemporary end of the spectrum to throwback techno. Further along in the night, Hessle Audio's Ben UFO took over from the BTC residents in the second room, and finished the crowd off with a miscellaneous selection of squeaks, bleeps and squelchy acid noises, culminating in screeching electro riffs that seemed ready to take your ears off.
Back in the main room, the heads-down crowd were surprised by an early departure from Shakir, meaning that Daniel Bell took to the decks 20 minutes early. Bell decided to take the pace Shakir had set down a notch with some typical minimal grooves. These basic beats, many of them composed in the '90s, were a minimal diehard's dream, however, when transitioned from vinyl to the dance floor at Corsica, left listeners a little cold. Consequently, it took some time for the music and the crowd to get fired up again following Shakir's exit. Once Bell picked up steam, though, we were treated to a barrage of thumping techno gems. His ability to keep the slightly rumpled crowd in high spirits seemed effortless, and 6 AM rolled around all too soon.
