The first (and only time) I went to Carnival I wasn’t local and went with a crew and we followed the floats down Ladbroke Grove and had an amazing time and there was one guy in our group who kept trying to get us to hurry up so we could get to this sound system he wanted to go to. I didn’t really get it at the time and we fannied about having fun and eventually got to what I know now to be the Sancho Panza sound system on Middle Row at around 6.30pm and it was going off in a way I had just never seen before. People were dancing on the roofs of vans and on the walls and going mental on the street and it sounded pheneomenal and it was, in the space of about two minutes ,the best party I had ever been to.
Sadly it ended about half hour after we got there, but from that moment on I was smitten and from that year on I only went to the sound systems and never really bothered with the floats again. Not that they aren’t amazing as well but for me, to be dancing on the street in the middle of the day to killer tunes on killer systems with a jumpin crowd, there is no better.
Over the years I have danced at most of the sound systems at some point or another and have altered my hot spots according to my changing taste in tunes. When I was a house head I went to KCC, for vintage carnival tunes I go to Gaz’s Rockin Blues, or for some serious dub action there is the superb sound at Channel 1 and if you want to see a whole street go off to the latest urban beats there is Disya Jeneration where I usually spend most of my time these days…
My favourite used to be Norman Jay’s Good Times but it is sadly no longer there. I once did two 5 hour stints over 2 consecutive days with no breaks and on the 2nd day my ears blew and I have had tinnitus ever since but I have to say, it was kinda worth it. I couldn’t quite bring myself to sue Norman as he is such a lovely man…but how about you bring back the double decker bus and we won’t have to get the lawyers involved, eh?