Clapham,
The Establishing Shot: Paul Oakenfold plays Clapham Common
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| Paul Oakenfold plays Clapham Common |
On the warm Summer evening of Friday 24th of August 2001, the start of the Summer Bank Holiday weekend, Paul Oakenfold the biggest DJ in the world at his peak - headlined his biggest solo gig at the time - a massive free gig on Clapham Common. This event surely went down in "house" history as one of the most memorable nights of 2001. But that night also had more cultural significance than we were aware of at the time.
I have always felt this post was part of the reason I started blogging and whilst it was a time capsule for me it certainly lacked sufficient or even the necessary insight to make it relevant or a good post, so with that in mind in the 35th Anniversary year of Oakenfold’s Perfecto Records and the imminent release of the documentary Perfecto: How Dance Music Changed the World? I have revisited it and fleshed it out with more detail. Please excuse the photos these were taken with my trusty Sony Mavica MVC FD750 3MP Digital Camera back in the day.
In 2001 Oakenfold was busy he had just returned from playing the his Perfecto Summer parties at Pascha Ibiza and was working on a number of things that we only found out over the next couple of years but having moved on from his Cream residency along with Cream co-founder Darren Hughes to become the Director of Music Policy at Hughes’ and Ron McCulloch’s 7 floor London super club Home (September 1999 - March 2001) at it’s enviable location overlooking Leicester Square. Shortly before it’s untimely closure Oakenfold walked away because of creative differences, he was left without a regular gig and he was increasingly solidifying his goal of breaking America. He had pretty much created the concept of the superstar DJ and knew it would work in the States if he put in enough hard graft. Meanwhile his status in the UK couldn't have been bigger, as confirmed on that hot summer's night in London.
In 2001, Channel 4 arranged four popular music events in Brighton, Bristol, Bradford and London to help bring a younger, wider audience to cricket. Giant outdoor screens were set up to show the cricket coverage and then to showcase film and music in the evenings with live DJs.
To commemorate the final test of the series fans headed to Clapham Common and politely enjoyed the ECB Cricket Roadshow, an interactive summer event hosted by the England and Wales Cricket Board with demonstrations by Sir Viv Richards and virtual reality cricket nets before watching the match on a giant screen and winding down with a DJ set courtesy of Paul Oakenfold. Oakenfold had a friend in Channel 4’s marketing department, who managed to book the DJ to play after the cricket for free, as a favour.
The Establishing Shot: PAUL OAKENFOLD PLAYS CLAPHAM COMMON, a photo by Craig Grobler on Flickr.
Only that didn’t happen. As the 2001 Ashes series finished earlier than traditionally expected because the dominant Australian team won the first three matches, allowing them to secure the best-of-five series in just 31 days. Additionally, the overall schedule was heavily compressed to conclude in August, even allowing the Australian squad time off to watch the Wimbledon final. However Channel 4 had made a commitment to screen the match, and had taken out advertising space all over London.
What that means is that over the weeks leading up to the final test the marketing of the watch party shifted focus from cricket to Oakenfold’s slot being the main event, that combined with word of mouth of the success of Fat Boy Slim Live on Brighton Beach show resulted in the event was no longer a polite wind down rather between 50,000 to 60,000 people (apparently the Met Police’s count was up to seventy thousand people) arrived for a Paul Oakenfold gig on Clapham Common on a balmy Bank Holiday Friday evening. At this point I should mention I don’t like cricket, we went along with the explicit intention of experiencing Paul Oakenfold Live on Clapham Common.
The Establishing Shot: BACKSTAGE PAUL OAKENFOLD PLAYS CLAPHAM COMMON, a photo by Craig Grobler on Flickr.
First up Hernán Cattáneo warmed up the crowd. After meeting during Cattáneo’s residency at Pacha Buenos Aires Oakenfold asked him to open for him on his global tour before signing him to Perfecto Records.
Next up another Perfecto artist, vocalist Jan Johnston took to the stage. Her track Unafraid (Paul Oakenfold Mix) was all over the place with the release of Paul Oakenfold’s Swordfish: The Album soundtrack a couple of months earlier.
The Establishing Shot: BACKSTAGE PAUL OAKENFOLD PLAYS CLAPHAM COMMON, a photo by Craig Grobler on Flickr.
Finally the man himself, Paul Oakenfold opened with Danny Tenaglia's Labour Of Love Mix of Depeche Mode’s I Feel Loved which still hits differently, he finished with his staple closer at the time: CJ Bolland's - The Prophet. Another standout was from early on in his set when brought out the Creamer & Stephane K Remix of IIO’s Rapture.
Oakenfold played for about an hour and I can't identify the full setlist but his set included:
Moby - South Side (Pete Heller Park Lane Vocal),
Velvet Girl - Velvet (Mike Monday Remix),
Virtual Symmetry - Mammal (Original Mix),
Natural Brn Chillers - Rock The Funky Beat,
Fu Man Choo - Outlaw (Praha Remix),
Insigma - Open Our Eyes (Insigma Mix),
The Future Sound Of London - Papua New Guinea (Hybrid Full Length Mix),
Faithless - We Come 1 (Rollo & Sister Bliss Remix),
Tiësto - Suburban Train,
PPK - ResuRection (Space Club Mix),
U2 - New Years Day (Ferry Corsten Remix). In 2020 Oakenfold uploaded an almost complete fan recording of the set:
Video: Clapham Commons Live Set
As far a live DJ shows go this was one of the greatest gigs I had ever been to. We had just arrived in the UK and this was pretty much the first London gig we went to.I pretty much came close to peaking that evening and can count on one hand the DJ sets that have been in the same ball park. One would expect Oakenfold to play huge arenas, Mount Everest or Stonehenge so when he plays on the Commons up your road it can only be incredible. I am not the only one who feels this way. Oakenfold has many times spoken about how the Clapham Common gig was one of his most memorable. In a 2018 interview with Mark Gwinnett of The Night Bazaar he mentions the Clapham gig:
Your legacy in dance music is vast. With nostalgia for vintage electronic music very high at the moment with classical interpretations of legendary anthems and reunion events, do you have any stand out eras that are tough to beat? How do you view the now global scene today?
I’ve been very fortunate with electronic music. I never thought I’d see the world through a box of records and never realized it would become the global scene it is today. Some of my most memorable shows were my own show on Clapham Common where we had over 50,000 people turn up and opening for Madonna and U2 at Wembley Stadium and my shows with an orchestra that happened from 2003-2007.
- https://thenightbazaar.co.uk/paul-oakenfold-concerned-causing-avalanche/
In an extract from Richard Norris’ 2007 Paul Oakenfold: The Authorised Biography, Oakenfold recounts some of his memories from the Clapham gig:
I’ve been very fortunate with electronic music. I never thought I’d see the world through a box of records and never realized it would become the global scene it is today. Some of my most memorable shows were my own show on Clapham Common where we had over 50,000 people turn up and opening for Madonna and U2 at Wembley Stadium and my shows with an orchestra that happened from 2003-2007.
- https://thenightbazaar.co.uk/paul-oakenfold-concerned-causing-avalanche/
'I played Wembley Stadium opening for U2, but the Clapham Common gig was arguably my biggest ever gig in London,' says Paul.
'This was my gig, and it was free. No one in their right mind expected what went on. It was meant to be people sitting watching the cricket, with a bit of a party after. I was thinking, ‘it’s a nice day, we’ll get maybe ten thousand,’ but the build-up was massive – they changed the advertising, so all over London I had these big billboard posters up. It became not just a South London event, it became a massive free party for the whole city.
The people just didn’t stop coming'.
'This was my gig, and it was free. No one in their right mind expected what went on. It was meant to be people sitting watching the cricket, with a bit of a party after. I was thinking, ‘it’s a nice day, we’ll get maybe ten thousand,’ but the build-up was massive – they changed the advertising, so all over London I had these big billboard posters up. It became not just a South London event, it became a massive free party for the whole city.
The people just didn’t stop coming'.
The Establishing Shot: BACKSTAGE PAUL OAKENFOLD PLAYS CLAPHAM COMMON, a photo by Craig Grobler on Flickr.
Oakenfold's long-time manager Marc Marot remembers the evening at the height of Paul's popularity:
Paul’s playing to a crowd the size of Glastonbury, and there’s this little screen with a DJ set-up beside it with a small sound system. It was a riot.
It was f***ing phenomenal,” says Marc Marot. “It was one of the most gobsmacking moments. Channel 4 were completely caught on the hop. By the time there were seventy thousand people there, this supposedly giant screen they’d put up looked like a telly.
The moment they put the Channel 4 logo on to end the show, bottles and cans started flying, says Marc Marot. “Unfortunately the hospitality area was directly behind the screen – we had to hide while vodka bottles were thumping on the roof, whacking into Channel 4 executives’ cars!”
The Establishing Shot: BACKSTAGE PAUL OAKENFOLD PLAYS CLAPHAM COMMON, a photo by Craig Grobler on Flickr.
In his 2022 autobiography Ready Steady Go Oakenfold further expands on that Clapham evening.
It was estimated some time ago that I must have played to over 20 million people since I started performing, which is roughly the same size as the current population of Sri Lanka. Some of the gigs have obviously been more memorable than others, but the one that sits alone in terms of the experience it provided, and what it did for me professionally, was a gig I did on Clapham Common in August 2001. Instigated by Channel 4 in order to celebrate the fact that they’d won the rights to show the Ashes from the BBC, it is to this day the biggest solo gig I’ve ever done.
It actually started out as a support slot for the cricket. Channel 4 had decided to erect some big screens on Clapham Common in order to show the final Test of the series and the idea was that once that was done I would come on and we’d all have a jolly old time. Come the end of the fourth Test, Australia had already won the series which rendered the whole cricket thing a bit of a damp squib. In reaction to this Channel 4 decided to change how the event was promoted and it went from being a cricket match with a DJ at the end to a DJ with a cricket match at the beginning, if that makes sense. All of a sudden the billboards, which were situated all over London, had my name on them instead of Darren Gough’s, so I’d been elevated to the main event and was no longer playing second fiddle.
Despite it being a free event they weren’t expecting hordes of people, and as well as a couple of food stands there were just a few toilets and a handful of police officers. They were expecting a couple of thousand people max, I think, and with the sun beating down it looked like we were on for a good day. A civilised game of cricket that means nothing followed by some banging tunes courtesy of yours truly. Who could ask for more?
I have no idea what happened with the cricket as it isn’t my thing, but by the time I arrived for my shift there must have been at least 50,000 people there, which later swelled to at an estimated 70,000. By this time I’d played to lots of big crowds with U2 and whoever, but none where they’d come to see me. The police, however, were extraordinarily nervous about the crowd, and had they been able to disperse them I’m sure they would’ve. As it was, all they could do was pray that nothing went wrong, and fortunately it didn’t. I do realise that we were probably quite lucky in that respect as anything could have happened as there were next to no police there. I remember one of the officers kept on running into the DJ booth. ‘Have you seen the amount of people?’ he said. ‘They just keep coming!’ Because of all the lights I only got a glimpse of the burgeoning crowd on a few occasions, but when I did it took my breath away. What made me laugh though was the screen that was stuck in the middle. With just a couple of thousand people expected the screen they’d ordered was quite small, which stuck in the middle of 70,000 made it look like a portable television.
The immediate aftermath of the gig, at least for me, was amazing. The atmosphere had been incredible and although the police had been very nervous it had obviously been a big success. ‘We should do this every year,’ I said to my manager. ‘You’re not serious,’ he said. ‘Why not?’ I replied. ‘We could feature all the artists who are signed to Perfecto and I’d headline.’ The general feeling seemed to be that we’d got away with something and should leave it at that, but I wasn’t having any of it. Next time we’d have everything in place, especially the right amount of police. In my opinion it was no coincidence that there hadn’t been any violence or bad feeling and I wanted to go again. After arranging a meeting with Channel 4, I laid out my grand plan which was to hold the event on the same day every year going forward. I thought it went well but unfortunately they were having none of it. Like everyone else (except me) they felt like we’d dodged a bullet so it didn’t even get to first base. To me that just wasn’t logical as with everything in place surely there’d be less chance of it going wrong.
For a couple of weeks I was full of regret of what might have been (I even had a name for it which would have been Oakenfest), but as time went on that went and I was left with memories of what had actually taken place. Beautiful memories. Had we gone again these would have been diluted over the years, but as it stands they’re as strong now as they were twenty years ago. Yep, that was definitely one of my better days.
It actually started out as a support slot for the cricket. Channel 4 had decided to erect some big screens on Clapham Common in order to show the final Test of the series and the idea was that once that was done I would come on and we’d all have a jolly old time. Come the end of the fourth Test, Australia had already won the series which rendered the whole cricket thing a bit of a damp squib. In reaction to this Channel 4 decided to change how the event was promoted and it went from being a cricket match with a DJ at the end to a DJ with a cricket match at the beginning, if that makes sense. All of a sudden the billboards, which were situated all over London, had my name on them instead of Darren Gough’s, so I’d been elevated to the main event and was no longer playing second fiddle.
Despite it being a free event they weren’t expecting hordes of people, and as well as a couple of food stands there were just a few toilets and a handful of police officers. They were expecting a couple of thousand people max, I think, and with the sun beating down it looked like we were on for a good day. A civilised game of cricket that means nothing followed by some banging tunes courtesy of yours truly. Who could ask for more?
I have no idea what happened with the cricket as it isn’t my thing, but by the time I arrived for my shift there must have been at least 50,000 people there, which later swelled to at an estimated 70,000. By this time I’d played to lots of big crowds with U2 and whoever, but none where they’d come to see me. The police, however, were extraordinarily nervous about the crowd, and had they been able to disperse them I’m sure they would’ve. As it was, all they could do was pray that nothing went wrong, and fortunately it didn’t. I do realise that we were probably quite lucky in that respect as anything could have happened as there were next to no police there. I remember one of the officers kept on running into the DJ booth. ‘Have you seen the amount of people?’ he said. ‘They just keep coming!’ Because of all the lights I only got a glimpse of the burgeoning crowd on a few occasions, but when I did it took my breath away. What made me laugh though was the screen that was stuck in the middle. With just a couple of thousand people expected the screen they’d ordered was quite small, which stuck in the middle of 70,000 made it look like a portable television.
The immediate aftermath of the gig, at least for me, was amazing. The atmosphere had been incredible and although the police had been very nervous it had obviously been a big success. ‘We should do this every year,’ I said to my manager. ‘You’re not serious,’ he said. ‘Why not?’ I replied. ‘We could feature all the artists who are signed to Perfecto and I’d headline.’ The general feeling seemed to be that we’d got away with something and should leave it at that, but I wasn’t having any of it. Next time we’d have everything in place, especially the right amount of police. In my opinion it was no coincidence that there hadn’t been any violence or bad feeling and I wanted to go again. After arranging a meeting with Channel 4, I laid out my grand plan which was to hold the event on the same day every year going forward. I thought it went well but unfortunately they were having none of it. Like everyone else (except me) they felt like we’d dodged a bullet so it didn’t even get to first base. To me that just wasn’t logical as with everything in place surely there’d be less chance of it going wrong.
For a couple of weeks I was full of regret of what might have been (I even had a name for it which would have been Oakenfest), but as time went on that went and I was left with memories of what had actually taken place. Beautiful memories. Had we gone again these would have been diluted over the years, but as it stands they’re as strong now as they were twenty years ago. Yep, that was definitely one of my better days.
Outdoors under the stars listening to one of the greatest DJs of his time in full swing - I thought this is how a party is supposed to be. We didn't really see any of the bad stuff that is mentioned and I was quite surprised when I read about it. We just felt part of the 1000s of revellers enjoying the moment but then again we were way up front and I can't speak for what was happening at the back. In comparison the following year went along to Fat Boy Slim's Big Beach Boutique open air concert on Brighton Beach and that certainly was a lot more edgy and a story for another time.
The following evening Paul Oakenfold, Fatboy Slim, and Hernán Cattáneo would play Creamfields.
The following year Fatboy Slim headed back to Brighton Beach with Big Beach Boutique II. 60,000 people were expected, 80,000 people were planned for but 250,000 people arrived. For me this was another milestone gig and incredible evening but in the aftermath things did not go well and consequently no similar free concert has been permitted in Britain since. Fatboy has put on 2 smaller Brighton residents only events since. This week Big Beach Boutique 7, his massive four-show residency on Brighton Beach will run from July 16–19, 2026.
Paul Oakenfold transitioned from a UK club resident to a global superstar. A life long James Bond fan he collaborated with David Arnold and released his remix of the James Bond Theme (Bond Vs. Oakenfold) for the 2002 release of Die Another Day, he headlined Moby's Area: One tour and went on to crack America redefining the heights of global stardom for DJs.
Oakenfold returned to Clapham Common in July 2005 to headline the B-Live Party alongside acts like Jamiroquai & Amy Winehouse and again in August for Get Loaded in the Park alongside The Happy Mondays, Stereo MCs, Fatboy Slim and Armand Van Helden, but as yet he has not launched Oakenfest.
The English team beat the Australian team in 2005 breaking the Australian’s 16 year winning streak. Australia currently holds the record for the most Ashes series wins. They have won 34 series compared to 32 for England, with 7 draws.
In 2005 Channel 4 lost The Ashes broadcast rights to pay to view Sky Sports. Since then The Ashes have not been broadcast on terrestrial TV again. However in one summer Channel 4 was low-key responsible for two of the most memorable rave evenings of the 2000s, nudging two DJs closer to superstardom, mainstreaming dance music and making The Ashes a thing
I still don’t like cricket.
The Establishing Shot: PAUL OAKENFOLD PLAYS CLAPHAM COMMON
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