Review: MADE Birmingham

Photo: MADE Birmingham

After its roaring success last year it was time to bring back MADE Birmingham for a second year running. The all dayer drew a mixture of different music styles all crammed into Digbeth, with the likes of deep house maestro MK, Bristol's finest Julio Bashmore, roots and reggae icon David Rodigan and the legendary Norman Jay MBE playing.

As soon as we entered the main arena all the ingredients were laid out for a big sweaty rave up. With the sun blazing, beats booming and already raucous crowd, this was going to be a big event in the Brum rave calender.

The first DJ we caught was Brighton based Fono, who's latest single 'Real Joy' has already been doing the rounds on both daytime radio as well as in the clubs. His set was full of new and classic tracks, from the likes of Dusky's 'Love Taking Over' to nineties anthems in the shape of Buckethead's 'The Bomb' and French electro wizard Mr Oizo's very own 'Flat.

Afterwards we ventured into The Warehouse to catch Glaswegian man of the moment Jasper James laying down some fine techno beats in the Jackathon arena.

Carrying on the filthy jams was fellow Brummie and previous Below resident Adam Shelton who really got the party in full swing. His pounding set featured Samuel Deep's glitchy gem '3521', John Swing's funk fuelled 'I'm Here', the acid vibes of Johnny Fiasco's remix of Santiago & Bushido's 'Back 2 Back' and 'Pump Up the Jam' sampling Trevor Rockcliffe's 'The Jam'.

It was then up to Jackathon boss Heidi to take to the decks. The host's set saw her reaffirm her stature within the underground, with tracks including Johnny Aux's filthy remix of Shit Robot's 'Where It's At' and finishing with Missy Elliot favourite 'Get Ur Freak On'.

With the crowd hungry for more nasty techno tunes and already looking like they wanted the party to carry on all night long, it was finally time to bring on Dirtybird label's big daddy Claude Vonstroke. The party animal played a selection of his own tracks that included his current bangers 'Make A Cake' and 'Barrump' and his massive 'Bare Mountain' collab with Jesse Rose.

Now having two successful sold out festivals under it's belt, MADE Birmingham happily looks like it's here to stay, and we for one look forward to experiencing the perfect combo of world class DJs in a unique industrial setting for many years to come.

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