In August 2001 Paul Oakenfold played a free gig on Clapham Common. The event went down in history as one of the most memorable nights of 2001.
An extract from Paul Oakenfold: The Authorised Biography by Richard Norris, we recount a memorable free gig at the height of Paul's popularity as a DJ...
The channel had just acquired the rights to show the Ashes, cricket’s main draw, from the BBC, and wanted to celebrate in style. The mounted a huge campaign in London promoting the fact, and announced that they would put up a huge screen in Clapham Common for the first England v Australia showdown.
Paul had a friend at Channel 4’s marketing department, who managed to book the DJ to play after the cricket for free, as a favour.
There was only one problem. In the run-up to the event, England managed to lose the cricket series; it was pretty much over by the time the match reached Clapham Common.
Channel 4 had made a commitment to screen the match, and had taken out advertising space all over town. The billboards were changed accordingly – instead of promoting he cricket on the big screen, Channel 4 now elevated Paul’s DJ set to top of the bill.
There was a food stand, a reasonable sized DJ arena, a few toilets, a couple of policemen and a dog. A handful of security guards loitered round the front of the DJ booth.
Everybody was expecting a couple of thousand people to take advantage of this warm summer’s day, leisurely pitching up for some nice tunes in the park. Big mistake. According to the police count, around seventy thousand people turned up.
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