We look back at our incredible New Year’s Eve party at London’s Proud2; a fitting year to a fantastic year for house music.
Taking on the mammoth 3,500 capacity Proud2 – a redevelopment of the former Fabric-aligned institution matter – was always going to be a fairly challenging task, especially on the biggest night in the clubbing calendar But with a line-up which, to our ears at least, was the strongest in the capital, we were confident we’d be able to pull it off.
The night kicked off with deep, soulful vibes from Lynda Phoenix, dropping appropriately classic anthems such as Kerri Chandler’s ‘Bar A Thym’, Hardrives’ ‘Deep Inside’ alongside some of 2011’s best-loved cuts; Steffi’s ‘Yours’ inciting a particularly enthusiastic response from the rapidly swelling crowd packing the dancefloor.
Copyright then stepped up and slowly increased the tempo, teasing the now capacity room for the midnight appearance of Inner City and dropping huge tracks like Ame’s omnipresent remix of Osunlade’s ‘Envision’. It was about this time that Sam Copyright and Junior Jack started daring each other to go crowd surfing, and while neither of them ended up following through on their plans, we have it on good authority that they were only a couple of Sambucca’s away from getting stuck in.
Just before midnight, Copyright dropped Dennis Ferrer’s ‘Hey Hey’, sending the whole of Proud2 crazy before the room literally exploded… confetti cannons blasting over the crowd and stage before Inner City took to the stage to perform ‘Big Fun’, ‘Good Life’ and the recent ‘Future’. Watching over 3,000 all happily singing along to these seminal tracks was a special moment by anyone’s standards, and couldn’t have been a better way to see in the start of the New Year. The fact that Inner City had also brought nearly all their family along to watch from the side of the stage added to just how special a moment this really was for all involved.
Elsewhere, Osunlade and Atjazz were getting well into the party spirit with an impromptu back-to-back set, while Ashley Beedle and Simon Morrel were keeping the Digital Disco room jumping with tracks like Waifs & Strays ‘Body Shiver’, Tensnake ‘Something About You’ and the Carl Craig remix of Theo Parrish’s ‘Falling Up’.
With Junior Jack and Kid Crème’s blend of tough, tech house and bouncy classics encouraging plenty of people to eschew health and safety guidelines to clamber atop friends shoulders, the atmosphere was amazing, pure party vibes with pretty much everyone there on dancing until the very end of the night. Closing the night, ATFC rounded things off with a set of classic house and disco that culminated in the Funki Chile dropping Naughty by Nature’s ‘Hip Hop Hooray’; a suitably joyful way to end an superb night.
We’d like to a massive say thank you to all of the artists who performed on the night, as well as everyone who came to dance with us – over 4,000 of you over the course of the night. It was an absolute highlight in a year full of them, and one that will linger long in the memory.
Click here to see the full gallery from the night
