Just Jack 7th Birthday with Theo Parrish, Dixon, Marcellus Pittman @ Motion, Bristol – 25 January 2013
Photos by Ben Price
As a party institution, Just Jack are in a enviable but nonetheless difficult problem: how do you deal with success in a way that doesn’t lose touch with the qualities that helped you achieve it? In the three years STW has been in Bristol we’ve seen their standing in the city grow exponentially, using the blueprint of weird and wonderfully themed parties and line-ups combining old-gamers and young bloods all at the forefront of Electronic music. Their 7th birthday was another case in point.
It was their first event since being crowned DJ Mag’s Best British Club Night, and sold out a week or two before – no mean feat on a night when the indecisive and cash-tight beat-junkie was spoilt for choice with Hot Wuk and Teachings in Dub also going on. The line-up, however was peerless and epitomised how Just Jack’s careful artist selection has been a contributing factor to their recent success. In the tunnel, Detroit House veterans Theo Parrish and Marcellus Pittman clocked in a marathon eight-hour B2B set, while in Warehouse 2, Dixon (see the fist-pumper below) served up some intense Techno flavours for a mere three-and-a-half hours, the best of which was the DJ Koze remix of Matthew Herbert’s It’s Only (below).
Sandwiched between these two powerhouse sets was a new-look Main Room. Never one to shy away from outlandish decorations, it was scaled back to make way for an indoor R&R area in one half and HMS Yacht Rock in the other. The small tented area (in hindsight, perhaps too small) served up a welcome respite of Disco, Funk and Soul from the 70s (Fleetwood Mac – Big Love) to the modern day – Phoenix’s If I Ever Feel Better (see below) and Paul Simon’s Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes (Frank Wiedemann Remix). The outstanding latter made for a dreamy finish on Dixon and Ame’s Boiler Room last year so with him playing next door it was unsurprising that it received two re-spins while STW was present (and maybe more when we weren’t).
The cave also took some of the heat away from the main two hotspots, with Billy Disney serving a set full of crowd-pleasers, peaking with Todd Terje’s Inspector Norse and Matthew Herbert’s remix of Maxxi Soundsystem’s Regrets We Have No Use For.
The next Just Jack in Bristol will host Omar S and Jay Shepherd at the Migistrates Court on 16 March. Titled Back to Jack, it’s a conscious effort to deal with the problem posed above, and an effort to re-engage with their humble beginnings as party-makers. Could this more intimate, exclusive experience be a one off or a whole way to approach their club nights in the wake of a big expansion to the festival circuit this year (see The Garden Festival, Eastern Electrics and Love Saves The Day). Either way it will be interesting to see what elements of the Just Jack brand that helped make them so successful will be retained.
