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 THRUST - gone Club Colosseum, 1 Nine Elms Lane, Vauxhall, London SW8 Weekly - Fridays 10.30pm-6am Aiming to fill a gaping hole in the Friday-night market, and with pre-publicity promising production values the likes of which London hadn't seen before, from one of South Africa's most successful club promoters, I had no hesitation shelling out my pocket money on a ticket for the opening party. The press release had me anticipating a musical journey worthy of Carl Cox, Sasha and Digweed, but in a gay club... Moist? I was fucking wetting myself! From the moment we stepped through the doors, it looked like we'd struck club gold. The searchlights outside, The promoter, fortunately, had similar feelings, and launched a blaze of counter-publicity ensuring that Thrust would be back, better than before, and this time with music to match the hype. And bugger me if I wasn't too ill to go... Damn those winter flu viruses! The next party, however, on 9th April, looks set to be a stunner, with a genuine DJ legend, Kurtis Mantronix, playing alongside Trade's spunky-monkey Rosco (who I next ran into at Space's opening party in Ibiza two-and-a-half months later), former Beyond legend Alan X, and the promise of Gordon John and Tom McMillan doing it with each other in the smallest room of the house. Don't miss it. Well, the music at the closing party was fantastic. So, at the very least, Thrust ended on a high!
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If there was ever a buzz about a much-needed breath of fresh air to the London club scene, it was for the March launch of Thrust at Club Colosseum.
through to the lavishly decorated lobby, to the most magnificent chillout zone of any club in London... I thought I'd stepped into a time tunnel and arrived in Ibiza three months early! Clubbing on a grand scale, which got my juices flowing for one of those nights where the music would whisk me off to places lesser mixing skills didn't reach! You know there's a 'but' coming don't you. Well, just be patient, I'm writing this...Where were we? Okay, the club looks fantastic. Everybody's there. The sound system at Colosseum is one of the best in London. And the promoter is famous for his parties with techno genius Carl Cox. And the music was good. Very good, in fact. Just not great. Not amazing. Not spellbinding. Not hypnotic, awe-inspiring, life-changing, blinding, incredible, or even plain-fucking rocking. It was very good. 
In fact, it was suspiciously like the music in just about every other successful gay club in London. The same records, most of the same mixes, quite often in the same order. These DJs should all be taken to Space's opening party at the end of May, made to wait until the end of the night when Carl Cox starts his second set to close the proceedings, and see what happens... to tired limb and vacant minds... after drugs and alcohol cease to function. How music can make people dance, like time itself has stood still to allow your body to worship the one true god of the dancefloor... music. The pure, unadulterated passage of sound through the mind, changing reality the way no drug ever could. Frankly, that wasn't what I got at Thrust.
Though I did have a fantastic time under Luke Hope in the smaller Thrust Funk room!
