Bicep, Boiler Room, and the Beats Saving Belfast

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Bicep, Boiler Room, and the Beats Saving Belfast

How AVA Festival is building a foundation for Northern Ireland's electronic future.

"Oi, oi, oi fucking oi!" I've been to Boiler Rooms before, and the crowd I'm used to is usually head-nodding casually-as-fuck somewhere between cool consideration and comatose. Something else was going on here. Stuffed under a canopy in the shadow an oil rig, they were practically tearing the place down. After a few bemused minutes, taken aback by how much everyone and everything was popping off, an arm reached out from the swell and jabbed me in shoulder, "AYE! ENJOY YOURSELF YOU TWAT!"

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To be honest, and slightly cynical for a moment, I'm going to write a lot about festivals this summer and the process can end up being pretty repetitive. I go to the festival, I have a great time, I reflect on it and then the festival can use my lyrical waxing to sell more tickets next year. After Belfast's inaugural AVA Festival, however, I feel armed with a different motive. THUMP brought you an article a couple of weeks back, all about Belfast. As a city it battles to sustain its nightlife, a frustratingly familiar story of a government seemingly determined to create a climate where a healthy clubbing culture is almost impossible to achieve. As countless people said to me throughout the daylong party, "You just don't get this in Belfast…ever."

The story behind AVA is all about the city, and in particular one of its brightest talents: Bicep. Andy Ferguson and Matthew McBriar represent something big for Belfast, a force that has broken way beyond the city's struggling scene on to international recognition. Clearly desiring to give back in some way, they put their sizeable name behind a party that set out to represent everything Belfast has to offer. A consolidation of sorts, proving that despite government restrictions, and disinterest from media and promoters alike, the city is teeming with electronic creativity.

XOYO's next residents are Bicep.

At an artist led event like this, you might expect a massive production team behind the 'face of the campaign'. I was pretty surprised then when introduced to Sarah, the festival's organiser, who spent the day tirelessly buzzing around tuned constantly into her radio ear-piece. "Hi, I'm Sarah McBriar!" she told me, shaking my hand, lightly adding – "Bicep's sister!" More specifically, Sarah is half (Matthew) of Bicep's sister and was tasked with overseeing the entire festival, along with a small but dedicated team. Having met with her, a second hand out-stretched for introduction, "…and I'm Bicep's Mum". AVA festival was, top to bottom, a family affair.

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My flight had got me into the George Best city airport at around 10 that morning, and post a shuffle through security, and a quickly sunk lukewarm coffee, I was in the back of a car pulling in to the T13 Warehouse. "This is where they built the Titanic y'know?", my driver offered from the front. I told him I didn't, and proceeded to look up from my phone and out of the window, to the enormity outside. Great hulking cranes sullenly facing out to the grey sea, spikes on the docklands encircling the vast hangar we were approaching. Leaving the car we made our way into the warehouse which, like outside, was unseasonably cold. I'd only left a crisp and sunny London a couple of hours ago, but strangely felt much further away.

The action began with a conference element, featuring talks from Belfast based artists and some from further afield. Talks about music can be stuffy at the best of times, often you find yourself in an assembled audience comprised completely of industry types, most of them all eyeing the stage thinking how much more interesting they would be than any of the chosen speakers. Refreshingly, this wasn't the game being played at AVA. There were young producers in the audience, from Belfast, hanging on the dialogue and throwing in questions of their own. Tellingly, the answers were less focussed on streaming services or piracy, and instead on making sounds. Debating analog over digital, the trials of perfecting the best modular set-up, the importance of understanding music theory.

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I sensed that the purpose of AVA was harnessing an energy that has long lived in the city, but hasn't had the channel through which it can be released. On reflection, these talks could end up being one of the most important parts of the day. Let's say a budding producer goes away from year one, enthused to make their first stumbling effort into electronic production, the year after they pick up more advice and direction and maybe exchange a demo or two. A year later, they might be ready to learn about releasing their first EP, or how best to contact labels. You get the picture, but if this sort of momentum carries, AVA can essentially be a self-sustaining event. Belfast is small, but its electronic music is mighty, and crying out to be nurtured.

We spoke to the bloke behind those Boiler Room videos.

It was after the conference, and my attempt at shovelling a decidedly gooey pizza down my throat with as much dignity as possible, that the Boiler Rooms began. It's a God-send that the streams will all eventually be on Youtube for posterity, as it was roundly agreed by both the organisers, and the Boiler Room team themselves, that what went on was unseen in the site's history. Chanting, shoving, jumping, and yells of elation. From the palpable groove that welcomed Timmy Stewart's dropping of Floorplan's "Baby", to the euphoric mate-hugging pandemonium of Space Dimension Controller letting trance classic "Ayla" rip, it was sensational. It was the energy of a neglected audience, who had spent too long watching streams of ungrateful London-dwelling twenty-somethings from their laptops. Now, the party had come to them, and they were going to beat it within an inch of its life.

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As Bicep themselves rounded off the session with the final Boiler Room set, an even harsher wind began to sweep a spitting cold rain. The optimistic short-wearers heard the gradual thuds emanating from the now in full swing main room, so hurriedly, stubbing out my residual rollie, I followed them inside.

Resident at Belfast's long running club institution Shine, Phil Kieran, gave the growing throng a throbbing welcome. From here the main room showed no let up. The numbers of bodies grew and grew under the bass-infected house wobbles of Ejeca, straight through to the mind-warping laser show that accompanied SDC's colossal set. From here the reigns were handed over to the ever-excellent Optimo, who spliced their usual eclectic electronic cuts with a touching nod to the event's organisers. I was taking a moment to briefly catch up with Bicep's Andy when Wilkes and Twitch began to tease "Just", the Belfast duo's superb new track. Andy paused mid-sentence, "sorry mate, two seconds." He darted past security, centered himself in front of Optimo and raised his bottle to them.

This mutual appreciation, and investment in the event, was everywhere. From DJ's Dad's taking chauffeur duties from the airport, to the festival t shirts designed by Bicep themselves, the festival had been pieced together with pride. I later found out that "Bicep's Mum", who I'd be introduced to earlier, had even taken to cleaning the toilets at regular intervals. This went way further than a commercial venture, or even a musical one. It was a personal mission.

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The day could only have closed one way, and it was left to Bicep to bow out the proceedings. Their set coasted through a blast of disco edits (endless shout outs for the second killer Floorplan cut of the day in the shape of "Greatest Dancer"), bold 90s house and a handful of contemporary screamers. Fittingly the closing track was the swift, svelte grooves of Sheila B. Devotion's "Spacer". Now in some settings we might turn our nose up at something so abrasively floor-filling, but it represented what the day was all about. Belfast has been crying out for a force like AVA, to galvanise the talent and house the party-starved. You only get boring enough to find shimmering disco cheesy if you have the opportunity to party on a regular basis. At AVA it played out like a call to arms.

My evening in Belfast ended with the closeness that had typified my whole visit. Packed into a bathroom-turned-green-room with Bicep, their family, and an unimaginably excited gaggle of friends. The room was hushed, and Sarah (Bicep's sister) was led in to a swell of applause and cheers. She was then presented with a cake with the AVA lineup printed on it, and a single candle. For a first birthday, it had been quite a party. It's not often a festival ends with a birthday cake. It's not often the headliner's mum is cleaning the toilets. It's not often a Boiler Room sounds like a football terrace. Then again, it's not often Belfast gets to party this hard. My flight barely hours away, I slipped off to try and nap in the departures lounge, but struggled. It wasn't even the drink, or the rattle of WH Smith's shutters being pulled up as I tried to sleep. I was buzzing off the energy of a singular day, in a singular city. Few parties are this special, but even fewer are this important.

Find out more about AVA Festival on their website and Facebook.

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