Do you believe in Rezerection?

The two main people are Paul Ludford and Beccy White, both from Newcastle. Paul, however was the founder member of Rez and for many years has had a good knowledge of the music industry, with his company Kitchen Ware Productions. No, they don’t make tea towels and spatulas, but organise dance orientated shows.

Back in 1980, Paul and a guy called Keith Armstrong, were in a band together at university. After a short break from the band Keith asked Paul if he would like to get involved in promoting local bands. Paul agreed, so they set up a club night called ‘Soul Kitchen’ once a week in Newcastle. Here they would put on a live guitar band many of which were from Scotland. On the first night they had a band called ‘The Fire Engines’ which although weren’t very big, they were very talented. The first show went down well, so they carried on their regular weekly night at the club, and after a few years were booking names like ‘New Order’. This night then made them a lot of money, which they put into starting a record label called ‘Kitchenware Records’. They were managing people like ‘Prefab Sprout’ and a soul band called ‘The Cane Gang’, who were huge in America.

Although Paul enjoyed managing bands, he much preferred the promotions side of things, like setting up venues and putting the bands on tours. After promoting pop bands for a while, Paul was asked for help in setting up a rave in Newcastle by a guy who was having problems. With the contacts that Paul had with the police and local authorities, it made it easier for him to lay on an event of this nature. At the time Paul wasn’t into rave, and was more used to guitar based music.

“The one thing I remember most from that first event was the attitude the people had that went there. They were there to have a good time no matter what. I was used to people standing there going, ‘entertain me!’ and comments like, ‘that guitar break wasn’t very good’, or, ‘the band last week were a lot better’ – but the rave’s attitude was brilliant, a breath of fresh air to me!”.

After that first event, which they called ‘Rezerection’, Paul decided to do more and Keith carried on with the record label, which was doing well. Regular events were held in Newcastle and Rezerection grew bigger and bigger boasting better DJ’s every time. But still not satisfied, Paul wanted a bigger venue, and came up with the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh.

He had been looking for a large venue for a while, and with nothing in the North east, plus the fact that there was some serious hassles with the police, Edinburgh seems the next best choice. After several meetings with a reluctant council, Paul eventually persuaded them for an all night licence.

“We had a hell of a lot of meetings up in Scotland. The people who owned the centre took a lot of persuading, but that was only the first hurdle. We still had local authorities to get round. They are very big on noise control in Scotland, if you fart outside the noise limit, they’ll be up your arse with the sound meter”.

There were many times in this meeting where one thing has been said by the council in private, then when the press is there at an alternative meeting, something else has been said purely so they get re-elected. Paul describes this as being, “very political”, but has been used to some advantage on many occasions.

This first event attracted 11,000 people and was held in February 1992. The DJ’s were all English, as were the P.A’s, which was something different for Scotland. Paul describes the going from there, not much easier, and he still has to go to countless meetings before a licence is granted, which like the last event, can go in favour by only one vote. Paul has to overcome problems such as litter, noise, safety regulations and local inhabitants.

“People think that the centre is in the middle of nowhere, but people live round there, some only about 50 metres away. I tried all sorts to limit the noise and even asked one occupant to move away for the night while the event was on. It took two years of pleading with this guy, that we would look after his house and caravan park while he was away. Eventually he did go, and does so at every event, and he’s fine about it now”.

After this first success, Paul held many more events there, each one bigger and better than the last, with more people coming from all over.

About this time, Beccy started to get involved. She didn’t really know anything about the scene, but says she’s got into it very quickly. It wasn’t until about two years ago that Beccy became heavily involved.

From just doing small administration, to actually running the show, was a big step. At present she does all the bookings for the DJ’s, P.A.’s and MC’s, as well as the publicity and stage organisation. If people start getting out of line, Beccy will make sure they get back in line. She has had full control of the show. Paul will back her one hundred percent in anything she says or does.

The time soon came round for the Event 2, which was held in July 1994 at the Showground rather than the centre. This event boasted two massive marquees, twenty of the world’s finest DJ’s, seven of the best P.A.’s, as well as the usual Rez attractions, from fairground rides, to fire-eaters and bungee jumping to jugglers. This was an 8pm until 8am all nighter as usual, and proved to be a massive success with an amazing 13,000 people attending. People were pleased to see that everything advertised was actually there, and the authorities were pleased that there was no trouble or complaints.

Over the past six months, Paul thinks that the licences have become harder to get with the bad press on the rave scene, and also the death at ‘Hanger 13’. Even so, he has managed to come up with a twenty hour licence for the event ‘The Equinox’, another massive outdoor event, with a staggering forty four artist line up from the USA, Europe and the UK. ‘The Equinox’ plans to be very different from the rest of the events.

“We have tried to put emphasis on the carnival/festival type event rather than just a few raves. The council were quite shocked when I asked for a twenty hour licence. They had got used to me asking for twelve hours, but again, after many meetings we got it”.

This event runs from 12 noon, until 8am the next day, and includes two marquees (The Eclipse and The Sunset), a massive fairground and an indoor cinema. There is also outdoor entertainment with the Scottish Pipe and Drum band (och-I-that-nooo!!), parachute display team, BMX display team and much more.

The artists include Lenny Dee, Paul Elstak, Jeff Mills, Dougal & Vibes, Ramos & Supreme and MC Marley. The list is endless. P.A.’s strutting their stuff include DYE Witness, Dwarf and Babyboom records, Q-Tex, Ruffneck Alliance as well as Bass X, The Rhythmic State and QFX. MC’s include Sneaky Eye, XXX, Cyclone, MC G and Marley.

This event will hopefully be a sell out, with tickets selling at over a thousand a week. So, if you haven’t got one yet, I suggest you hurry or miss out on a stomping night.

Rezerections’ plans for the future are to try and expand on the twenty hour carnival/festival idea, and carry on the usual twelve hour events. As Paul told me “All night parties are here to stay”.