Crack

Just Jack’s 6th Birthday Circus party rolled up into Just Jack’s spiritual home at Motion for a night of decadence, guests and birthday-flavoured fun.

Warming the cockles with the weather outside a little ‘beyond a joke cold’, Motion had pulled out all the stops with the entire breadth of the complex open for the first time. From The Tunnel you could walk across the Main Room, where stalls and circus-based merriment were the order of the day, and then continue into the ‘Just Jack Warehouse.’

In a brilliant line-up at odds with current popular trends there are no Hot Natured, Visionquest or Crosstown Rebels artists on the bill, while London cool kids Trouble Vision have been invited down to curate The Tunnel. The musical results are exactly what the doctor ordered.

The effort that went into the main room circus was superb. The crew of performers from Bear Moves saw aerial acts, contortionists, cabaret and magic across a main room that was brimming with colour, glitter and made-up faces. In a twist that showed just how far Just Jack had gone to secure The Circus was as authentic as possible, the snake charmer they’d booked had to pull out because the ridiculous cold weather meant his snake's life would be at risk. Effort points secured!

Add to this a moustache bar, a nail bar and a games marquee with old classics likes hooking a duck, and it was a wonder people actually saw any music. It also meant a lot of people running around daubed in their most colourful finery.

In the Trouble Vision tunnel, the future garage-cum-techno-cum-house-cum-odd sounds of Joy Orbision and fast becoming Crack’s favourite DJ Ben UFO was a back-to-back treat. After watching the Hessle Audio boss destroy In:Motion back in October, their rammed set in The Tunnel proved to be an attention grabbing three hours of variation that traversed these aforementioned genres using techno as a base camp. Crowd favourite Ye Ye by Caribou's alter ego Daphni rang out and bodies collided.

After checking out Leeds' favourite night Louche make The Cave bounce courtesy of main man Nicholas's spacey disco, Crack decides to hang around a while and we are richly rewarded by the sounds on display. The spacey sounds are a massive antidote to the harder edged business in The Tunnel and showcases the Leeds brand as a forward thinking staple and why it's become such a draw in The North.

And so to the Main Room warehouse. After catching Matt Tolfrey for some chatter earlier in the evening, his set reflected the congenial nature of the man himself. Upfront, focused and bubbling with the exclusives and unknowns you’d expect from a man who heads up a hugely successful label in Leftroom Records, it was an adventure that sucked a brilliant amount of variation from today’s spectrum and energy from the crowd.

Headliner Maya Jane Coles’'s late start time worked well on two levels; it allowed the anticipation for one of the most hotly-tipped artists of the moment to brew all night, as well as allowing a bit more space to be freed up from stragglers heading home for the night. The sizeable weight of expectation on Miss Coles’ shoulders based on the year she’s just had (including being declared Resident Advisor’s 9th biggest DJ of 2011) often makes constructing a set around the blocks you’ve previously used to create your aura a risky business. People can accuse you of not moving forward and relying on your old material, while at the same time same time people always want to hear your signature work. Which way is best to play it? Well Maya went for the jugular in spouting out some rather hard-edged house and techno. Very, very uncompromising stuff but let’s face it, it’s six in the morning, rabble-rousing is perhaps the angle to shoot for. By the end of the set at 7am the crowd was still brimming and she wore a smile the size of Cheshire on her face.

A superb night that once again showcased Just Jack as much more than just a top-end house and techno night. First and foremost, it's an amazing party; the world-class aural treats are simply a bonus.

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http://www.facebook.com/justjackhousemusic

Photos: Ben Price

http://benjaminprice.tumblr.com/

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