2009, Jacks Club. SE1 London.With a diverse mix of music styles, funky Alice In Wonderland themed decor, amazing atmosphere and charitable objectives, the Wonderland events are the London club scene's real hidden gems. Now summer is coming and the festival season with it, the festival pre-parties are beginning to kick into gear with Wonderland being no exception.
Wonderland started when a group of young friends banded together to put on their own little shindig out in a field in order to make a bit of cash for Cancer Research, a charity close to their hearts. With festivals getting easier to run in recent years these smaller events have been popping up all over the place, giving new and aspiring young talents the chance to play to sizeable audiences that they ordinarily wouldn’t be able to attract.
With the early success of the Wonderland festival, the team began to spread out and make appearances at other events, atWords & pics: Will Poole places like Glade, Luminopolis and at the amazing Planet Angel Chinese New Year party. With these early successes Wonderland then took a dive into the deep end by putting on their own nights in collaboration with Mome Rath Records, and it has paid off in spades. The events each took on a magical theme of Alice in Wonderland, big mushrooms included.
The latest event was the Road to Wonderland pre-party at Jacks Club in London Bridge. The night was a taster to the Wonderland festival planned for later in August. We at Toxin were very excited as not only were the usual Wonderland attractions on show, but Acidic Record’s very own Cellardore was playing a live set stuffed full of his own tunes, sure to blow any crowd away.
Entering Road to Wonderland really did feel like falling down the rabbit hole, except this time it was a tea party of a very different nature. Live bands greeted you as you paused to take it all in. Like all the Wonderland parties the crew were dressed as the many characters within the story, which is a beautiful touch to go with the well dressed decor hanging within the rooms. The room was dark - a little too dark to show off the decor, really - but considering how new to the whole party scene the Wonderland crew are, they did an extremely good job at doing all they possibly could and then some.
The room we had entered first was the chill out room and played host to an interesting range of bands, some good, some not so good, but all original and full of potential. Considering the youthfulness of Wonderland, this played to their grassroots appeal. Something this Wonderland party that did confuzzle me was the varied crowd it pulled in, made up mostly of the typical hippie-esque youths you usually associate with such events but this time with a small number of beer abusing louts who seemed totally at odds with the atmosphere Wonderland are so keen to promote. To Wonderland's credit I think it was more to do with the venue and the local regulars it generally pulls in regardless of the club night.
The large main room felt more like a giant squat party with all your friends than anything. 
You could tell they had done their best to fill the large space with a mix of games and little hideaways. Even the renowned Wonderland 'wendy house' had made a home for itself at the back of the dance floor. However, unfortunately the main room suffered with the same problems the chill out room did, very few lights and a poor sound system to work with. The music at the beginning of the night wasn’t really to my taste either and what started with one talented MC taking up the mic turned into a rabble of musically-challenged individuals who clearly thought they were the shizzle, but sadly very few would agree. We were eventually put out of our misery and the night was back on track when Benchmark took to the airwaves with his brilliant mix of drum and bass. The night continued to get better with a wicked set of breaks by Duzmoore and well, call us biased but the real highlight for us was Cellardore with his blinding live set which really got the dance floor moving.
