van Dyking: Turnmills, Farringdon, London, United Kingdom

van Dyk in Turnmills

PVD (www.paulvandyk.de) spun a fabulous and intense set last night at the Turnmills (www.turnmills.co.uk) in Farringdon, a 5 minutes walk from my flat in London. We had a few back home, where I decided to open the Austrian Riesling from the Vienna trip, which turned out (surprisingly) pretty good for something that was bought on a quick whim at the duty-free counter on the way to the boarding lounge. We arrived at the club at about half 1 in the morning, knowing that PVD wouldn't start his set before 2. There was a small queue outside still trying their luck and it was self-satisfying in an unashamedly pathetic way walking past the whole lot and waving the advanced tickets in the face of the bouncer guarding the (until then non-existent) guest queue.

PVD's commercial success ensured that the club was literally overflowing with the conforming type of trance clubbers and it was impossible to dance for long without being interrupted by someone trying to get past. There were few highlights for the night, apart from an annoying group of sad Greek guys with bad hair, minging faces, smelly bodies, and not atypical designer clothing, and a William Hung-look alike who shamelessly stalked about despite our fairly obvious sniggering.

Fortunately, PVD's set saved the night. PVD's music is very much like what I dig in a good cappuccino - strong, frothy and dark, and his set that night was not surprisingly inspiring and well-mixed. Despite remaining frightfully sober throughout the entire set - the bar being rather inconveniently located at the other end of the room meant I simply could not be arsed to squeeze through the whole lot of perspiring and writhing bodies to get through to - I hadn't danced that hard since godknowswhen. The highlight for me all night was Crush, which isn't the strongest track in his arsenal, but is one of my favourite tracks from PVD as it has an amazing sense of dreamy and hazy development which gives very much of a kick at the high points. PVD loves to tease and tease he did throughout the night/morning. He has a legendary knack for building the set into a fucking intense point before unleashing the best part of it at unsuspecting moments.

Leaving the club at half 5 in the morning, we took the tube to Leicester Square and had some supper at 1997 in Wardour Street (Soho), my favourite 24 hour eatery, before strolling home and crashing into bed at 8 in the morning, which felt very pleasant.