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Club Review - Jaunt>

We go underground with the Geordie techno upstarts

The product of a good few months planning and a decent slab of sickening anticipation, the still relatively new Newcastle night Jaunt> finally offered up their secret warehouse party, drafting in secretsundaze’s very own Giles Smith to spin out his best to a strictly capped 100 capacity crowd.

Jaunt>, the two and a half year old brainchild of a bunch of Geordie lads intent on shaking up the bookings in the Northern city with names such as Motor City Drum Ensemble, Chris Tietjen, Julietta and Robert Dietz, have been plotting this cheeky little soiree for a good while now. And by secret, I mean that in the furthest extreme, as the misleading title ‘secret warehouse party’ doesn’t quite go far enough to describe the venue the lads have pulled off.

Pretty much 100% illegal (clubbers were given birthday invitations as a cover up in case we got rumbled) Jaunt> goers were picked up in organised buses and carted a good 20 minutes drive out of the city to what can only be described as an artily retro, achingly cool, glorified shed. The home of a band who can practise freely without receiving constant noise complaints, and painted floor to ceiling in crazy multicolour murals, everyone’s jaws pretty much hit the floor when we arrived around 11pm, were promptly locked in and began to brace ourselves for something special...

After residents Richard Rowell and Tom Rankin got the crowd warmed up with the usual Jaunt> beats visiting all areas of the house, techno and even disco spectrums, Giles Smith arrived ready to keep the momentum going with his much revered musical palette that sees him regularly rock the seriously musically educated crowd that frequent his own cult London party.

As Giles got things going to a crowd tirelessly rocking along and still pinching themselves whenever they caught sight of a retro TV, beaten up old cabinet or mental wall painting in this crazy little venue, the atmosphere darkened and the beats went warm and deep, perfectly timed for the electricity to cut out and the 100 now slightly worse for wear ravers to be standing confused in the dark. After apologising to Mr, Smith and being met with the response “Don’t worry about it, it all adds to the fun at a party like this” all hands were on deck to pull out as many plugs as possible and cool down the wires. A move that meant for the rest of the night we were partying in the dark with only a lamp over the decks, which was pretty dam sweet in all honesty.

Fellow Jaunt residents Blackhall and Bookless continued proceedings after Giles wrapped up, while some of the bar staff (part of the band that practise here) cracked out a saxophone and set of bongo’s and played along to the blinding tracks offered up to the speakers by the surprisingly still only 22 year old lads. Dancing on the walls and profuse sweating ensued, with little doubt left to the mind that we had just witnessed something pretty dam special, and with gurning smiles all round the 100 strong and now pretty dishevelled crowd headed back to the coaches blatantly buzzing about the last few hours.

With more secret parties on the agenda in one of the most unique venues we have laid eyes on in the UK, and after the tickets for this event sold out in only 20 hours, we highly recommend keeping your eyes peeled for future Jaunt> events here. A breath of fresh air in an industry peppered with samey promotions left, right and centre, Jaunt> are making the effort to go that little bit further.

Check them out.

Julia Jennings