A trip to London would not be complete without a stop at Fabric, the world-renown superclub that not only hosts top electronic acts week after week, but has also spawned over fifty FabricLive compilation mixes. Fabric was certainly preceded by its reputation, but nothing could have prepared me for the actual experience. The line outside the club was unlike any I’d seen, but it wasn’t until I walked into Room One – the largest of Fabric’s three – that I realized the sheer mass of the dubstep scene in London.
I chose Friday, July 16th (and subsequently planned my entire trip to London around this date) for the line-up, which included the Dub Police (Caspa, Breakage, The Others, Emalkay, et al) along with Egyptrixx, Mumdance and over a dozen other artists. Upon my entrance the crowd went crazy for Caspa’s remix of “I Remember” by Deadmau5, and later Emalkay dropped pieces of his hit song, “When I Look At You”, throughout his set, building the anticipation.
Fabric is so large that it wasn’t until I had been there for over an hour that I finally came across the other two rooms. Room Two was so full that the party practically spilled out into the corridor. A sea of bodies, taking up every square inch of space and perched on platforms on both sides, danced furiously to the drum and bass breakbeats issuing from the speakers.
I came up for air and found myself in Fabric’s third room, where Egyptrixx was spinning a (comparatively) low-key set. Small but dynamic with a multi-level design, Room 3 felt like an oasis from the madness, accented with blue lights and fog.
While I am no stranger to dubstep parties in New York, (thanks in large part to our friends at Trouble & Bass), the London scene is a completely different animal. Sure, there were some familiar elements – the music, of course, and the sweaty bodies dancing in a manner that only dubstep can instigate – but Fabric managed to capture dubstep in a way that went beyond the music, an “essence” if you will, that has to do with the surroundings, the people, and the overall vibe.
