Brussels, Friday 27th of May 2011 - 7am.

Missed my train.

The train that would take me to London, where the LDBK family was expected to team up with Mixcloud. A couple of arguments concerning cancellation insurance, the purchase of a new ticket and a Eurostar ride later, I had to look right-left-right in order not to get run over.

Reason to invade big homie Ben’s city was the release of the first official Laid Back compilation. An end of studies project by Pierre de Schaetzen (aka Grown So Ugly) who studies music management. In 2010 Pierre did his first internship at LDBK and became a driving force within the organisation. This year he headed to Mixcloud for his second internship. So while working in London he connected the dots to make the compilation see the light and put up a proper 11h(!) release party in collaboration with Mixcloud.

Friday afternoon started with a little stroll in Shoreditch and first hand stories on how young people (try/struggle to) make it in this city. Since the release party was on Saturday, Friday night offered us the chance to discover London’s nightlife. On the programme were Letherette, Lone and Bibio at The Garage and an Outlook Festival party at Cable with a secret line-up. Not bad at all I’d reckon!

The Garage turned out to be a really neat venue. Cool public, cosy atmosphere and good music. Letherette got me shufflin’ my feet, Lone made me dance and Bibio was pure sweetness. I was having a blast already. Then it was off to Cable. A sort of old warehouse turned into a massive club, located in the side wall of a tunnel. This clearly was something else. Another thing that set it apart where the cues to get in. “Normal” I was told. “Normal?” I don’t think I want to whitness ‘extraordinary’ in that case. Having bought tickets in advance made things go a bit faster. Standing-in-line-for-over-half-an-hour-instead-of-one-and-a-half-faster that was. Name check, ID check, body check, metal detectors,… in. And there it was, dubstep the UK way. Tre-men-dous-ly loud, 4(?) rooms completely jam packed, cues everywhere (bars, lavatories, cloackroom, smoking area,…) and the most diverse public you could imagine: roughnecks, trucker trash, hipsters, ravers,… The one thing they had in common: going all out. Each in his or her own way. It was a spectacle and an experience to say the least. Since I was there with people who had been to Cable more often, it’s save to say that it wasn’t just me who found it all just slightly too excessive though. So after an hour or so of decibel torture, looking for but not finding a spot to be at ease, we decided to call it a night.

When one is sleeping in a living a room, he should take into count that weird things might occur. Like a party squad coming home and continuing to go crazy around you. Luckily playing ‘asleep’ avoided further encounters of the doped kind.

Hardly a surprise that I didn’t wake up too early, right? Anyway, today was the day. After helping out miss “Sweet sweet fantasy baby” to get a new pair of fresh kicks we headed to the Big Chill House. Mixcloud has a monthly residency over there and each time they invite an acclaimed user of their platform to throw a party together. On arrival the rest of the fam had also arrived. Around 5PM yours truly kicked off the event on the beautiful roof terrace. Despite the grey clouds the atmosphere was totally laid back. Splendid. Dr. Kwest took over and while JoBee laid down some vocals over his beats the sun came out. The perfect weather for Fatoosan’s groovy set and us dancing to it. BBQ, shades and cocktails included.

While Trust In Dust started to warm up the main room, Title completely tore the roof (top) down. Time had come to move inside and check out the main and second room. The main room too was taken over by Laid Back affiliated dj’s and by the time I got downstairs Mr. Critical was already scorching the decks with 45’s and funky cuts.

The rest of the evening was all about running up and downstairs to get down to the heavy weight selections by dj Azer, Eric Lau, Lefto, Paul Pre, Simbad and Kutmah covering ‘beats’ in the broadest way a dance floor could handle. Both rooms were boiling ‘til the fat lady sang. I think the video speaks for itself ;). At 5AM the question got popped: “So who is going to sleep where?” All I remember is that a couple of us ended up at a couple of others’ place; that whatever booze and food got pulled out of the cabinets, hazy talks and sock wrestling followed and that it all got topped off with some solid passing out.

On Sunday we said goodbye to our hosts and some of our fam who had to head back already and went discovering Shoreditch some more. Bricklane in full effect has such a great and lively atmosphere. By the evening all plans to go out once more got cancelled, so we settled for a Mexican restaurant in Notting Hill. Ending up in the most boring part of London afterwards where it took us more than an hour to find a simple beer was a bit too much of tranquility though. On the other hand it made us map out our last day in London town to make full use of the time left. Result: saw every corner of Tate Modern and did some last minute shopping before going back to Bruxelles ma belle. Just marvellous!

I cannot thank Pierre, Juliette, Tim, Caroline, Julien, Rich, Nikhil, Eric, Joanna, Fatou, Toon, Benny, Lefto and Alex enough for what will easily be remembered as one of the best, if not THE best extended weekend of 2011!

Video directed and edited by Caroline Lessire
Sound by Al Senz
Sound mix by Felix Blume
Color grading by Ryszard Karcz
More pictures on Flickr

On Friday the 14th of October, Laid Back invites Mixcloud to celebrate their 2nd birthday in Brussels. More info.