Circus X Anniversary: review

Last weekend saw Yousef's iconic Liverpool club night clock up a whopping ten years of world class parties. Joseph Sheridan-Ruddy went along to join the anniversary fun.

Jayne Robinson

Date published: 4th Oct 2012

Festival season is over. My body is tired, and I have more than certainly had my fill. The downside of this is no more festivals for another year, but the upside is that UK promoters tend to throw their weight back into the clubs. Circus X at Liverpool’s Masque was the first of hopefully many trips out of my home town in the long and expensive run up to Christmas.

Yousef’s Circus has been a mainstay feature of the North-West (and the rest of the UK’s) house music scene for a decade, and for the 10th birthday party the invitee list was topped by genre-hopping legend Sasha. The club-night is run on a simple concept: “serious house music and fun times”, and given the club’s tenure in the city, this seems to be quite a successful formula.

Liverpool’s Masque is a truly unique venue. The cave of wooden walls and battered staircases creates a habitual reverb which is unmatched in any club I have been to. Other than for bar trips, I remained in the main room - an old theatre which appears to have been made centuries ago purely for the enjoyment of house music - for the entire evening.

Maceo Plex headed up proceedings and didn’t waste any time getting warmed up. As if the club was a window and Maceo was a kid with a catapult - he smashed it. From the start, without pause for caution. The crowd yelped, cheered, grinded and pushed as he reached the pinnacle of his set by dropping Frank Wiedemann & Ry Cuming, 'Howling' (Âme Remix).

The precedent was set for the evening. Yousef played the crowd like they were his own personal audience, each body willing to move to whatever he told them to. At one point it was almost like you could reach out and grab the music, as the lights cut through the masses and the bass bounced underneath a thousand pairs of feet.

There was a slight dip in proceedings as Sasha meandered down a more serious route, building his set up with heavier styling, before trailing down a progressive path and getting the crowd back for the last of his set. The winning tracks here were Kölsch, 'All that Matters' and, perhaps the best tune of the night, his own remix of 'Flutes' by Hot Chip.

All in all, it was a night worth seeing. There seemed to be a little bit for everyone without it getting too obscure or cool. Let's hope the Autumn carries on with more of the same.

Words: Joseph Sheridan-Ruddy