However this isn't a rant or a moan, the night was an absolute roaring success, the students, aged between 18 and probably 20ish, were coming up to us soulies telling us how wicked the music is, the floor was heaving, packed to bursting point, in short it was a cracking night, sure you couldn't get up and do the northern shuffle, although our women did shoes off and stockinged feet, they didn't seem put off by all the young boys and it was somewhat irritating for all of us but make no mistake this was a cracking night, the DJs and the venue must have been absolutely delighted, these kids were seriously getting down in their way to the sounds that Jo, Lee and Fraze were socking to 'em!
OK they were enjoying it in a different way than we do, there was no discussion about records or labels, there were no posturing ballerinas to watch, no reminiscing about 'when I were a lad', no chewing invisible gum, no moaning whether it was OVO or not (I'm sure it was as the DJs are quality proper Soul DJs) but make no mistake the kids were totally loving it! I guess we won't be going again, but that's fine, we won't be missed, the numbers were great without us little lot, and it was fantastic, good to see, compared to most soul events this was a riot! Brilliant win-win
that would have been right up my street, wish Id been there to see that, unfortunately the scene is dominated by well...others...and some of the young uns coming onto the scene are being bigged up and schooled in pure arrogance, which means in ten years time they will be left to play by themselves.
answer is to go forward and not look back, decline is reflected in the amount of "safe djs" who have been playing the same sets for the past ten years, eventually people go off and do other things, it will go the same way as the rock n rollers, if theres no new words in a language it dies off, that is the Northern scene in a lot of quarters. TBH some places have turned into WMCs. The rock n roll scene as an example is alive and well in the continent where they have big attendances and big prize dance comps, pure enjoyment, and I havent been to one yet but the soul scene is obviously strong in Europe.