We started promoting small local events around 1994 with the launch of of a small night called Jungle Pressure. This originated as a local jungle night held in the back of a garage in the village of Sutton and was a regular meeting point for up and coming DJ’s and MC’s. Run by Dave Wayman and Guy Habbin (Phobic) these nights were always memorable with anthems such as Leviticus’ ‘Burial’ and Nicky Blackmarket’s ‘Geese Toon’ always making a welcome appearance.

The divide between Happy Hardcore and Jungle came into effect around the end of 1994 and as the music progressed into new forms it wasn't’t too long before Sy and Unknown’s ‘Are You Ready?’ and Slipmatts ‘Breaking Free’ sneaked into our DJ’s record boxes. Between 1994 and 1995 was the golden era of underground dance music for Section 23, it formed a way of life both musically and socially, creating the path for new experiences and new friendships.

At the time large rave promoters such as Dreamscape, AWOL, World Dance and Dance Paradise set the industry standard with immense production and an artist line up to pull crowds from all over the country. Locally, Eclipse and Temptation were both ruling the Cambridge rave scene, bringing DJ’s such as Kenny Ken, Ray Keith, Grooverider and Slipmatt to the fens. 

As a local promoter we progressed to another garage in Witcham (another local village near Ely) and eventually moved to Witcham Village Hall around the end of 1995. Our events were usually held once a month with local Jungle, House, and Hardcore DJ's providing the music. We organised many memorable events in Witcham with DJ’s such as Danny Page, Phobic, Inject, Chewy and Jamie providing the music. Idea’s were tried and tested during our stay in Witcham; our most memorable included a 40k sound system with guest MC’s Smurf and Wesley from Cambridge (who later went into the studio to record various garage anthems).

At the end of 1995 musical boundaries were forever extending and although the Hardcore and Jungle scene was well and truly divided, many elements of the music continued to interchange. Shy FX’s ‘Call Wait’ and ‘Funkindem Up’ made massive impact, alongside Edit V’s ‘No More Tears’ and Seductions ‘Disco Hardcore’. Shy FX cannot be listed here without a mention of ‘Wolf’ which, to this day will always hold memories of Helter Skelter at The Sanctuary (Milton Keynes).

We eventually moved to Ely Rugby Club in 1997, regularly organising Jungle and Drum and Bass nights (with a slight element of Happy Hardcore). At the time we hired sound and light from Terry Jones (Jester) in Cambridge, loading bass bins, power amps etc into the back of a 3 door VW Polo. Our passion for the scene never dampened and our local reputation as one of the few promoters to organise nights in Ely grew and grew.

Helter Skelter, Roast, Telepathy and United Dance dominated the large scale rave scene during 1997. Stevenage Art’s and Leisure Centre because the new place to be and many venue’s across London became favorable to some of our die hard Drum and Bass crew.

Trend’s ‘V2’ and Shimon & Andy C’s ‘Quest’ are without a doubt two of the most memorable tunes of 1997. Sy & Unknown also remixed ‘Devotion’ in 1997, one of the many Happy Hardcore releases at the time to contain Drum and Bass beats and breaks.

Still under the Jungle Pressure name we carried on promoting nights at The Rugby Club right up until the start of the new millennium and after a short break in 1999, we decided to re-brand our promotional name. At the time Garage was getting stupidly big and after many names being thrown around, we eventually ended up with Section 23 Promotions.

We changed direction in the year 2000 and concentrated on breaking Section 23 DJ’s into other local areas, and by 2001 two of our main DJ’s had entered and won competitions based in March (Inject & KD). Now with an award winning Garage DJ under our belts we headed to Newmarket where eventually DJ’s Toby Dwinger and KD held a residency at Club M. For some time both DJ’s played alongside EZ, Robbie Craig, The Artful Dodger, Norris ‘da boss’ Windros and other main stage DJ’s and live PA’s.

The White House (which moved on to be become Club M) also housed a regular Drum & Bass night alongside Warning and AWOL which brought talent such as Fearless, Rap, Bassman and Mickey Finn to Newmarket. Warning still continued to hold a larger scale night at The Junction in Cambridge although around this time many under 18’s were attending for all the wrong reasons.

Whilst the garage scene was literally blowing up, Inject and I started looking at small venues in and around Ely to host a regular drum and bass night on a Sunday. Eventually we found Bar Zest, a small, up and coming wine bar in the middle of Ely City. Downstairs Bar Zest catered for the regular weekend drinkers with a relaxed atmosphere and a music policy of strictly trance and dance, however, hiding away on the second floor was a small function room. We were offered the function room on a Sunday night and decided to promote a Drum & Bass night for local DJ’s and MC’s and their supporters (much like the Jungle Pressure nights in Dave Wayman’s garage)

Although the lack of air conditioning upstairs made you smell for days of stale smoke, the vibe we created was electric – every week was a guaranteed road block (well as much as a roadblock in Ely could be!) DJ’s such as V-Teck (now known as Villan), Inject, Jamie, Phobic were joined by many up and coming MC’s such as Sean T and Wikedboy Harmonne (who, at the time was unknown to Section 23).

Skipping on a few years (and missing many Sunday night Drum & Bass nights at Bar Zest) we arrive in 2002 where I believe we met Scott from Darkside Connections. At this time Jamie had taken a break from promoting and was concentrating on Dj’ing and restoring his back catalogue while Inject was crossing over to R’n’B and Hip Hop.

Darkside Connections was a smaller similar outfit to Section 23 who, at the time promoted house parties in Milton and Cambridge and as the year progressed, Jamie was asked to represent Section 23 at many of their events. Playing alongside Darkside artists such as Sniper, Viper, Logic and Frostie created a new link in the Drum & Bass promotion journey, providing fresh new talent and also rekindled our passion to promote. The link between Section 23 and Darkside was soon formed and takes us onwards to 2003.

We moved back to Bar Zest to promote regular nights on a Friday. As the venue had been turned into a nightclub, the old function room upstairs was turned into a second dance floor, enabling us to provide both mainstream music in the main room and an alternative sound of Drum and Bass upstairs.

During 2003 Drum and Bass locally turned into a specialist musical genre, gone it seemed were the days of everyone knowing the latest MC lyrics and humming the bassline of Andy C’s latest anthem. Did people’s attitude change or were we just getting old?

Leaving the older hardcore ravers to adopt Funky House and witnessing the up and coming clubbing generation to embrace pop music like never before seemed like we were fighting a loosing battle supporting our beloved Drum & Bass but were we just targeting the wrong audience? We fought the struggle and retained a good number of original ravers who eventually brought new faces to the dance floor.

We met the Pulsar crew in 2005 through a connection on Drum and Bass Arena. DJ and MC swaps worked well with artists such as Klusta, Blazius and Dell representing the Pulsar connection at Club Zest nights and Jamie, Inject and KD playing at Zoots in Kings Lynn. MC’s Vigilante and PHD also attended many of Section 23 night courtesy of Pulsar whilst Wikedboy and Jamie provided vocal abilities to the King Lynn crew.

During the middle of 2005 Jamie appeared as a guest on Blazius’s internet radio show, streaming live to the world on futuredrumz.com.

We hosted a one off bank holiday night at The Lamb Hotel in Ely during the end of 2005 in order to test out our new sound system. The night sold out in advance and many old faces returned to see what all the fuss was about.

Although the night at the Lamb Hotel proved popular it was also difficult to secure a monthly event due to the venue being attached to the hotel from above and with noise restrictions and unhappy guests from above we decided this wasn't the route for the future.

2006 was the year we spent much of our time hosting bi monthly nights at Club Zest. We featured many DJ's from Drum and Bass Arena forums, Darkside Connections and many other local DJ's and MC's.

At the end of 2006 and after a long residency at Club Zest we decided to part company with the club for the time being. The local scene in Ely has unfortunately changed so drastically that many local clubbers are traveling week in week out to Cambridge and Newmarket.

Between August 2006 and October 2007, Jamie concentrated on his weekly radio station on Radio Nation, a internet show broadcasting via the world wide web. Inject, Villain Wikedboy and Kieran featured on the show as guests and the fan base grew and grew. Sadly, in October the radio station ran out of funding and was closed down.

In October 2007 we moved back to Club Zest which was then re-branded as The Glass House. We ran a series of themed events during this year which proved very popular with the Ely crowd, especially the Gentlemen's nights.

Triple H was at the centre spot for 2007 and was used at all of The Glass House nights, hosting both the Gentlemen's nights and the Beach Party. The nights helped the re-branding of the club and to raise its profile, generating a younger crowd which had been missing the previous year.

At the end of 2007 we ran a DJ competition on Sunday evening's at The Glass House to not only generate interest in the local scene but also to find new talent for the new year. Although the nights were lacking in numbers it proved beneficial and we were able to look forward to the next year ahead with a brand new selection of up and coming DJ's and MC's.

We secured a fortnightly urban night for Triple H at The Glass House which ran for 6 months successfully before Triple H moved on to Innocence in Newmarket to a fortnightly residency.