TDK Cross Central 2004: Sunday, 29th August

Page 1 Of 2

It's packed tonight and the terrace outside (Secretsundaze) sees MANDY spinning it housey and funky and not too hectic (it's still early hours). The terrace is packed, vibrant, but there's no room to bop your head without getting a mouthful of pink petals from a hanging basket or two. Moving inside, the Bacardi Bar has the 'eclectic' Ross Allen on the decks. There's a layed-back cheer as Ross brings in 'Last night a DJ saved my life'. The atmosphere is chilled and funky and no-where is it pretentious, despite the designer belts and bags on show. Meanwhile, continuing the west London boys vibe in The Key is a storming selection of deep, dance-floor jazz, funk, soul and broken beats. The standard is very high, but what more can you expect from the man behind Talkin' Loud and THIS. This is of course Gilles Peterson.

The open air stage is host to Mark Rae, who's set would have been right at home a few stops down the circle line at Notting Hill on a float playing to a carnival crowd. The goods yard crowd watch a few people getting down, break-dancing and having a good time and there's a lot of people out here for Rae's set, considering what's going on inside... the news of Carl Craig's arrival in the London XPress room has obviously spread and there's now a queue stretched right back to get up the stairs to the studios.

Tom Middleton (a superstar DJ make no mistake) has started his set in The Bacardi Bar, Dj Yoda (a superstar DJ of different nature make no mistake), has started playing at the hip hop stage and we're in a dilemma. We finally opt for Yoda, the crowd cheering and bouncing as ganja smoke drifts through with the soundwaves. Yoda drops in tracks spanning old skool, new skool, hip hop, funk and a surprising amount of 80's tunes, mixing it all together like a true pro and only allowing you a moment to recognise what he's playing, before chopping and switching and mixing it up, bad bwoi stylee. Crowd pleaser.

The Soul II Soul Soundsystem has taken over Mark Rae. 'Feel Free', a classic Soul II Soul track from "back in tha day" is rinsin' us down. Disappointingly it's only the sound system and not the full band on show, so not so much of a live set as a bit of singing and dancing over records. But still, it's sentimental and we get right down to tracks from the Club Classics albums, especially 'Keep On Moving' which touches a few. However, there are too many records being played that we've heard a thousand times and it's soon time to keep on, movin' on... to somewhere... still a queue to get upstairs... still eating flowers on The Cross terrace...still as hot as Ethiopia inside The Cross... oh a backdoor to the upstairs, c'mon, let us in! Up we go.

A wall of people inside the door to the London Xpress room, very sweaty, and Carl Craig has finished his set, apparently the line-up suggested by the programme is out the window so we aren't sure who's playing, it doesn't sound much like Derrick May, but apparently it is... it's funky and housey, rather unlike Derrick May and no-one in here seems to know who's playing. It sounds more like Derrick Carter (could they have mixed up their Derricks?) We assume it must be the Idjut Boys, but it's not all that great and it's all been done before. The next room is The Nu Cult Alliance room, a bit more chilled out (for now), a very nice set up for this room with visuals playing all around... very arty.