Event Reviews

What is the Southport Weekender all about then? Up North Promotions (Alex & Dave) are the organisers of this event and things have really changed from when they started out 20 years ago. They started their project in Berwick in Scotland and moved to Morecambe and Fleetwood before relocating to Southport. Alex and Dave have promoted Black music for over 30 years in the UK and always believed that there was enough room in the marketplace to hold a soul weekender in the north similar to the legendary Caister Weekenders in Norfolk.

Louie Vega under the lights

The event is held at Pontins holiday camp twice a year (May & November) and is the perfect venue for 5000 clubbers to let their inhibitions go. The party gets cranked up on Friday evening and winds down on Sunday night. On any given Southport Weekender you can always expect to see a huge range of the world’s greatest house music artists and DJs. DJs such as Kenny Dope, Louie Vega, Terry Hunter, Ron Trent, Frankie Feliciano to Gilles Peterson, Jazzanova, Benji B, Marc Mac, Ronnie Herel, Trevon Nelson and Jazzy Jeff have all performed in previous years.

Artists that starred last weekend were Incognito, Brand New Heavies, Sway, Joy Denalane, and Mark de Clive – Lowe. The range is super-wide; from R & B, Funk (Funkbase) Soul, Rare Groove, Disco (Connoisseurs Corner) to Soulful & Deep House (Powerhouse), Detroit House, Latin, Nu – Jazz, Broken Beat (Barcadi B – Live). It’s some kind of heaven!

Utterly amazing

I found my mates Elaino, Hodgey, Wardy, Helen, Linda, Degs and co (Deeside crew) hanging out in chalet 66. Over the weekend, in and around chalet 66, I met new people from Spain, Canada and the US… Two guys from Barcelona popped in and we found out that they are part of a group of 30 over for the weekend. "We have nothing in Barcelona which can be compared to Southport Weekender," they said, "even though our city does hold the Sonar Festival – we come here every year."

My highlights of the 40th Southport Weekender were a PA by Arnold Jarvis, Ben Westbeech with his band, Bah Samba with Roy Ayers (ouch!) and Angie Stone live. DJ-wise we’re talking DJ Spen, Quentin Harris, Dixon, Danny Krivit and for sheer creativity I’d have to say Moodyman.

Kerri Chandler: had the time of his life

I’ve got to say, without a shadow of a doubt though that the most inspirational person there was my man Kerri Chandler; where do I start? If any of you were lucky enough to be at Pontins on the Thursday and Sunday night, you would have seen Kerri Chandler djing at the local boozer ‘The Sands’ across the road from Pontins. This is the equivalent of going to the ‘Cabbage Hall’ in Anfield and finding Paul McCartney doing a turn – surprising and utterly amazing. The guy is nothing less than a legend. He is in there with the punters really soaking up the atmosphere, and really putting his heart and soul into the performance. If anyone ever needed convincing that DJing is a genuine skill – here’s the man to prove it.

To hear that Kerri Chandler arrived on a Thursday and left on Monday morning (he was only booked to dj on Saturday/Sunday morning at 6am to 8am) to absorb the whole picture of the Southport Weekender is something rare nowadays. Today’s DJ is more business minded than 12 years ago and there seems to be less opportunity for punters to meet and greet their heros.

The finishing touch was to log onto the discussion forum for Southport Weekender to find that Kerri himself had posted a message to everyone that had been at the event over the weekend. He had obviously had the time of his life. Something had touched him, about being there experiencing music with such a wide range of people – almost like a religious experience. I think it’s the best SPW I’ve been to. Until the next time dudes and dudettes…