Back To Basics 25th Anniversary with Erick Morillo review

Image: Church Leeds Credit: Elspeth Moore

Back to Basics, the longest running club night in Europe. For 25 years, it has been a clubbing institution and for several generations too. I write this review having celebrated the same birthday as Basics this year, whilst back in the early days, my father was among those who frequented the club. 

This longevity stems from the family behind it. With Dave Beer at the helm and his longstanding residents, the emphasis is and always has been to throw a party centred around the tunes, for a varied crowd of people to pay homage to top quality house music. A chance for people to forget their inhibitions and focus entirely on having a good time. Recently Basics have found a new home for their parties at Church, a venue that has been making waves since its opening last month. 

Despite arriving soon after the 10am start time, we found many were already queuing to get in the club. Queuing became a bit of a theme throughout the night, with people waiting some time to be served at some of the bars and many having to wait over an hour to collect coats from the disorganised cloakrooms at the end. Regardless of these hiccups, the Basics birthday celebrations were on point as ever. 

Residents Tristan Da Cunha, Ralph Lawson and Denney warmed up the main room of Church, a grand space still sporting the iconic features associated with the holy place of prayer. Stained glass windows take up much of the wall space, most noticeably behind the stage-set DJ booth, character that really does add to the feeling that you’re partying hard on what were once religious grounds. Makes sense really, as for many this truly is worship to the music and to the release that this nature of clubbing provides. 

The residents worked through a bunch of feel good party tracks like Todd Terje’s ‘Strandbar’ and the classic house bomb that is Lil Mo Ying Yang’s ‘Reach’ (‘Little’ ‘More’ Mix), which set the precedent for the main act to follow. 

Erick Morillo, a name well known to house music for many years, took to the stage with a bang and wasted no time working his way through tracks that have become synonymous with the genre over the years. Pumping bass provided the platform, along with lots of build ups laced with vocals from the likes of the seminal ‘My House Acapella (Jack Had A Groove)’.

Morillo’s set was full of energy for the duration, right up until an exquisite mix of synthy techno into Jaydee’s ‘Plastic Dreams’. This set was a masterclass in blending the old with the new, from an artist who clearly cares to hold on to his roots, yet remaining forward thinking. 

Back to Basics marked their anniversary in true Basics style, as giant balloons bounced around the crowd who took great pleasure in batting them around above. Morillo then drew his set to a close as disappointingly, Church closes at around 3:30am. Luckily however, an afterparty was due to start at Wire.

With such a delay in picking up coats from the cloakroom, we gave up waiting and made for a cold, mad dash across town to the next venue. Many had the same idea and after a little while of being crammed like sardines patiently waiting for Wire to actually open, we entered for what proved to be a royal afterparty and a fitting continuation of the birthday celebrations.

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