Just got home. Still haven't been to sleep.
I don't think anybody was camping. I wandered past about 6 and it was completely dead. Ended up queueing from about quarter past seven and being pretty much at the front. Saw everyone in room 1.
Great night, although it definitely tailed off, though largely through no fault of the DJs. A girl threw water from behind the decks during Youngsta/KM and it screwed up the sound, so they had to cut their set short and we didn't get to see any of Hatcha or N Type, which was disappointing. And it bears repeating, it was SO fucking hot. I think it must have been close to 45 degrees in there. Absolute wall of heat when you entered.
Ranked in order of preference:
Chef vs Joe Nice - absolutely spectacular
Goth-Trad vs VIVEK
Digital Mystikz
Youngsta and Kryptic Minds - would have been higher had it lasted longer. First time I've seen Youngsta live - it is quite something.
Distance & Tunnidge
James Blake vs Kode9 - Kode9 was good, but I was disappointed with James Blake. I suppose DJing isn't really his line of expertise, but he tried a couple of things (I'm looking at you, Ms Jackson/Love What Happened Here mashup) which just didn't work at all. There was one point where he did some weird sound manipulation and I started to get a bit trippy and hear distant noises, but I can't work out if that was the music or the heat.
Loefah - I've always liked Loefah, but never got a real emotional response from his music. I was hoping tonight would be the night, but I had to go and stand at the back for a bit to cool off, so probably didn't get much of a chance.
Skream & Benga
Going into more detail on Skream & Benga, I've seen them before and loved them. But it was an incredibly boring set. I'm not going to pontificate about how they're not being true to themselves or the spirit of DMZ, because I don't think either of those are helpful concepts for the progression of the scene, but it was very disappointing, given what they have at their disposal. It's weird as well, as soon as they busted out the 'stuff for which they've been criticised', the entire front of the crowd suddenly seemed full of bald steroid-pumping topless teenagers, gurning away. I hadn't seen any of them before all night. I'm sure that brand of dubstep just conjours them out of thin air. But either way, it definitely didn't fit. And nor did the dancier stuff they did for me. There was a new exclusive Skream dubplate that sounded like a late-90s Ibiza tune - horrible.
One of the teenagers apparently had some kind of Messianic complex and jumped on stage and started conducting the crowd. Wouldn't have minded so much, but he stayed up for Youngsta until he was eventually shouted at enough to get down and sort his life out.
Overall, pretty good vibe. Fair few tits flailing their arms about in tight spaces and taking the direct route to the front without considering anyone else, but that's standard club fare I suppose.
Certainly very glad I went.