Rapture In Rome

From the very first time we saw Muccassassina’s magnificence in the flesh, we have adored everything about this brilliant Italian brand, having seen it out & about on tour both for the massive London Global Dance Festival & then at Delice Dream in Barcelona, the opportunity, however, to see it in its natural home in Rome a dream in itself. But with the added ingredients of two brilliant Bello’s in Danny Verde & Micky Galliano, along with a reunion with Mucca’s (the affectionate term) creative director Diego Longobardi & his terrific team, the opportunity to head to the Italian capital for this monumental meet up was too much to resist. So, with an in & out schedule sorted, we took a flight down to Rome on the Friday, hooking up at our nearby hotel with both Danny & Micky for a pre-club bite to eat, we showered & shooshed ourselves up for the short hope down to Mucca’s host venue, Qube, arriving at just before 11.30 p.m., in plenty of time to see the whole of this voluptuous venue in its pre-opening state. In the capable hands of Mr Verde, we were shown each of the three floors in sequence, Danny explaining the different musical concepts associated with the individual & very different spaces, the ground floor reserved for V.J. style classic nineties & noughties pop music, a huge back of video screens the focal point, while the first more mirrored & expansive space housing R&B, although it was the top floor that was the icing on the Mucca cake, a huge square shaped room encased by an upper viewing balcony, a massive stage at one end, with the D.J. booth up even higher behind, a truly spectacular space with the biggest mirrorball as a centre piece we had ever seen. Plus, to make the stat of this magnificent Mucca experience more magical, we got to kick back while the drop dead gorgeous dancers dress rehearsed the main stage show, Diego in the thick of the action, masterminding the whole operation with his usual flair & flamboyance.

But we were here for the Mucca proper and it wasn’t long before the club was swinging into action, a sortie down to the ground floor finding that a large number of clubbers had already descended on Qube, a marvellous mixture of guys & girls, the expected Italiano trendy set very much out in force, as were the muscle mary’s but not overpoweringly so, regular club kids just as if not more plentiful, the one thing everyone having in common was to have the best time possible. And that’s exactly what we did, first lapping up every tiny morsel of the impressive & uplifting scorcher of a set from Mr Verde, who wowed us from start to finish of his superb stint, a performance packed with favourite anthems among newer tracks, treating us tremendously. Then, we enjoyed equal pleasure from the tougher yet still amazingly accessible accomplishments from Micky Galliano, very much giving Mucca’s main room the vroom we had expected & now adored. Plus, with stage showing after showing by those magnificent Mucca go-go dancers, resplendent in blond bob wigs in celebration of the “Raffaella” theme of this event, we hardly needed to leave the main room space, such was our complete captivation for this colourful & complete clubbing colossus. So, with a massive thank you to Diego, his top draw team, to our Bello’s Danny & Micky & to everyone involved in this Mucca magnificence that delivered resplendent rapture in Rome, with yet more to say, its “ready steady, go for the terrabite review”. (DISCO MATT)