SIDEWINDER

In the late 1990’s a small club in Northampton gave birth to the legend that goes by the name of Sidewinder.
In no time at all Sidewinder outgrew the 500 people venue they had been using, Sidewinder then bravely took on a 4000 capacity rave warehouse that had originally been home to the likes of Dreamscape and Helter Skelter, Sidewinder had no problem at all filling this huge arena, people flocked from all round the UK to get involved with the mighty Sidewinder.

SIDEWINDER

In the early days the original formula for Sidewinder was UK garage in the main arena with likes of EZ, Sticky, Dream team, Matt Jam Lamont, Jason  Kaye, Martin Larner, Principal then In arena 2 we would have a strong Drum and Base line up with artists link Zinc, Nicky Blackmarket, Groverider.

The sound evolved even more around 2000 you would regularly hear artists like SO SOLID CREW, MS DYNAMITE, HEARTLESS CREW, PAY AS YOU GO.

After the closure of the legendary sanctuary venue Sidewinder moved there event to another iconic venue: The Brunel rooms in Swindon this was Around 2002 the music was evolving further it was starting to get grimier this came from the influence of SO SOLID and PAY AS YOU which the people of Swindon and surrounding area seemed to love so we stuck with our original formula of UK Garage but started to cater for the really dark side of it with MC’s playing an important part, Slimzee would start a set with 2 MC’s say for instance Diz and Wiley who were booked to perform but then out of nowhere you would have a load of budding MC’s looking for their chance to shine and if they were really lucky a reload,  Faces I always used to see were D DOUBLE, CRAZY TITCH, LETHAL B, DURRTY GOODZ, BASHY, KANO, GHETTO, FLIRTA D, TINCHY STRIDER. So this meant our line ups had to evolve again we started booking more grime DJs like TARGET, DANNY WEED, MAK 10, KARNAGE, BIG MIKEE, Then before we knew it we were at the centre of a brand new evolving grime scene,
The middle years of grime were defiantly the most exciting years because it was all new everyone was hungry everyone fell in the same category so no one thought they were better than anyone else so it was a free for all and sidewinder was like the Geneva convention of the grime scene, it was just like a big royal rumble and the best rose to the top.
The last 7 years sidewinder has been constantly filling venues up and down the UK covering all angles of the UK underground sound, In the early days of grime it was all about London artists, Sidewinder were first to realise there was just as much talent in Manchester, Birmingham and all across the UK  so Sidewinder then took it next change in direction with a series of events called Sidewinder Raw these events covered Grime and UK Hip Hop and featured artist from all corners of the UK such as VIRUS SYNDICATE, BROKE AND ENGLISH, HIGHERSTAKES, LADY LEESHUR, MIDLANDS MAFIA, BBK, THE MOVEMENT, INVASION.
Over the past couple of years Sidewinder have been re-living the good old days they did 5 events called SIDEWINDER GOLD revisiting the DJ and MC’s of the early Sidewinder days.
GLENVILES NORTHAMPTON 1998 2000
SANCTUARY MILTON KEYNES 2000 2003
BRUNNEL ROOMS SWINDON 2002 2008
OCEAN ARENA HACKNEY 2005 2006
CARLING ACADEMY BRISTOL 2006 2011
02 ACAEMY LEICESTER 2011 2012
ROADMENDER NORTHAMPTON 2012
02 ACADEMY SHEFFIELDS 2013
SIDEWINDER SUMMER FESTIVAL, CASTLE DONNINGTON 2014
BOWLERS MANCHESTER 2014 TILL NOW (CURRENT HOME)

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