Fairly new to the scene, XOYO has secured itself a rightful place as one of the leading clubs of London. Week in week out they have been getting the biggest names and obviously Grand Hotel, which is the extension of the Plump DJ’s record label’s collaboration with Lock N Load events (SW4/Together), was no exception.
XOYO is tucked away down an alley and is for all first timers quite difficult to find (or maybe we’re just crap with maps). Our mate on NYE got so lost he tried getting in to 3 different places before stumbling back into the right place. Getting there, it was jam packed with only 50 tickets on the door, so the few places they had filled up quickly with many disappointed guests being turned away from 11pm.
When we got in Mumdance had just started and you could tell by his eclectic tune selection that it was definitely going to go off. With the aptly named ‘Smasher’ getting the dance floor hyped up, there was a noticeable shift as everyone from upstairs bustled to get down. It was just a shame for the unlucky few who had to queue upstairs for the strict one in one out policy. Especially because of the tunes banging out downstairs — no one was leaving!
Plump DJs have been 12 years in the game attracting a relatively mixed crowd, which in our opinion was a good thing. Speaking to people in the smoking area there was an air of anticipation as to what the Plumps were going to play. Often Breakbeat fans pray for Breaks and only Breaks, but their genre hopping 2 hour set had even the most diehard fan going ape-shit mental in pleasure.
People started to get physical, not in a roman orgy naked wrestling style but with every person in the crowd enduring surges from every which way, yet still loving absolutely every single minute of it. They have a vast catalogue of music to their name but in our opinion ‘System Addict’ set the place off and left no crevice unfilled with heads. It’s lucky they have padded walls in there.
Next up, after an extremely hard act to follow, Hervé took centre stage to an already hectic crowd and did not disappoint. As most of you probably already know Josh Harvey the (man behind Hervé) produces different styles of music under various different aliases, but Hervé is probably the most well-known and he couldn’t have smashed it any harder. He played a few favourites including the Reset! Remix of ‘Blaze it’ and his summer banger ‘Together’ which kept the club packed until the very end of the night.
In fact, the end kind of snuck up on us as we were having just too much fun. And now, here come the puns: We had our reservations about the early checkout, no night that sick should ever finish at 3am. But believe us when we say we won’t be leaving any vacancies on our next Grand Hotel visit.
