Review: Back to Basics 21st Birthday Part 2

The month of November is always an exciting one for Leeds, simply because it marks the birthday of our most special clubbing institution, Back to Basics. This year in particular was a big one, as the longest running club night in the world celebrated their coming of age - with two parties held across two clubs, headlined by a range of DJs and friends from over the years.

At the beginning of the month, Basics threw the first instalment of their birthday celebrations at The Warehouse, with guests Basement Jaxx who were invited along to perform a DJ set. However, the big one in our eyes was part two, which took place last weekend at The Garage.

Four rooms spanned across The Garage itself, Waxwerks and even Ok Karaoke above to give a proper party playground for the festivities. The night was soundtracked by a very exciting line-up: headliners Chez Damier and Laura Jones were down sporting their own flavours of deep house, supported by the long-standing Basics residents that we all know and love. It's not often the Basics crew are all on the bill at the same time, so we knew the 12 hour party was bound to be a good one.

Arriving to catch Tristan Da Cunha's set, we clambered down the dark and dingy corridor and into The Garage, where a big bunch of people were partying hard in front of the old chevy fire truck. We got stuck straight into the fine selection of deep and tech house Tristan was pumping across the raw and intimate space, in his shiny futuristic getup.

Chez Damier was up next, with a showcase of Chicago house. Piano riffs rippled across the smooth basslines that grooved out of the newly placed Funktion Ones at the front, to a crowd that were lapping up every second; there was plenty going on around the rest of the club but Damier had us all hooked with his feel good house music downstairs. Basics is renowned for its amazing party vibe and the DJs always reflect this – it was particularly fun when Damier dropped an edit of Nightcrawlers' 'Push The Feeling On'!

Next to take the reigns in The Garage was another Basics resident – Ralph Lawson. The 2020Vision boss kept the vibe going strong with a mixture of tech and deep house, dropping huge tunes of the summer like Tucillo's rework of 'Eau De Chante'. After a long stint downstairs however, we took the opportunity to head up to the 1st Floor where Laura Jones was mixing up an absolute treat of a set.

In keeping with the party feeling, she laid down a number of bombs to the intimate crowd dancing away on the raised floor in front. Bright colours round the room added to the warmth as she played house hits such as Cajmere's 'Feelin Kinda High' and the euphoric old school sound of Kerri Chandler's 'Get It Off'. Things got a bit wacky when she played Chateau Flight's 'Come Into My Kitchen' – she was mixing up a recipe for a serious amount of fun!

By the end of Laura's set, Dave Beer had taken over Waxwerks, and we felt it would have been rather rude not to have checked out the man at the helm of it all. The incredibly sweaty record store was full of friends all having a great time as Beer played a number of old school house tracks, celebrating the acid house that was so predominant back in the day when Basics began.

By 8am, we were a little worse for wear and so decided to call it a day. The Backtobasics birthday is always highly anticipated year in, year out, but the 21st celebrations in particular had been possibly the best yet. There was just so much fun to be had, and there's nothing serious; it's just about throwing a proper party for the people and having a real good time.

Happy birthday Basics - we're already looking forward to the next!

Words: Jack Law

Read more club reviews

Find upcoming Leeds club nights

Tickets are no longer available for this event