I nearly didn’t make it to The Bug and Warrior Queen on Friday. Post-work apathy held me long enough before I made a dash for the last bus into town to catch the gig. When I arrived, there was a queue outside Traffic of about 40 or so people yet it was past midnight (gig was due to start at 10.30pm).
I waited outside for 50 minutes in the bouncers “Drum and bass” queue to get downstairs to the basement. I met Declan from !Kaboogie who told me why there was a delay. The hassle involved Warrior Queen who flew from Jamaica to Dublin but was refused entry into the country on visa problems. A plan was made to fly her to London, then onto Belfast where she could get a bus down to Dublin. Unfortunately, Warrior Queen had little or no money for all this so she was met in Belfast by 4 lads from Diston who If I understand correctly, ended up driving her down to Dublin. They arrived just after midnight. That’s the gist of the story I was told anyway.
When I finally got in, the place was jammed and T-Woc was finishing up his set. The next hour and a half was crazy, The Bug came on and played loads of excellent dancehall and dubstep and the extra sub bass speakers made the difference to send the crowd on a spazz-out. In front of the DJ booth, there was limbs flailing everywhere, bodies whacking off each other trying to dance in such a compact space. The effort to dance was quashed periodically by people passing through to use the toilets and the guy in the wheelchair who wanted to be closer to the action. Fair play to him. As the night wore on, the leaf netting above us was being pulled down to where it looked like we were all wearing it on our heads.
Warrior Queen joined the Bug during the set and was an excellent MC. She definitely did a version of “Check it”. Also, if someone can help me, there was also a track played which sounded like a remix of Kode 9 and Spaceape? Any ideas? By the time, the gig was drawing to a close, the downstairs lights were on, the bouncers were failing to get people out. No-one wanted to leave. As I waited for a friend outside on the street, I thought, not for the first time, about the interesting parallel between the dancehall basement madness below and the people upstairs in the dance-pop bar, completely oblivious to what was happening below their feet. Well done, !Kaboogie, I haven’t sweat that much for months!
