JIM KING
All Points East
“ We were all in our 20s, all having the time of our lives, booking the biggest DJs in the world and building a great brand.”
“ Meeting James, Cream launching and then being a part of that journey was pivotal in so many ways,” says King.“ It really made me who I am today. At 22 years old, I had this incredible opportunity to book artists and promote shows but also to run a company and really get into the details on how a business works.”
It wasn’ t long before Cream outgrew the warehouses, and Liverpool. King played an integral role in it becoming an international brand, with Cream club nights across the UK and beyond. Having successfully tested the Balearic waters in 1994 with one-off events at Ibiza’ s Space and Pacha nightclubs, a Cream residency was set up in 1995 at Ku Club, which later became Privilege. The following year Cream returned to the island for a weekly summer residency, this time at Amnesia. Along the way, King and the Cream team worked with many of the world’ s top DJs, including Peter Tong, Carl Cox, Andrew Weatherall and Paul Oakenfold.
“ I WAS CAPTIVATED BY THE PROCESS OF STAGING OUTDOOR EVENTS.”
“ It was a time of many successful stories in the wider electronic music community, and we were proud to play a part in it,” says King.“ It felt like there were no rules. It was like the punk rock era revisited for electronic music. We weren’ t reckless or arrogant, but we were certainly fearless, we had no fear of failure. We didn’ t have much to lose; I was driving around in a Ford Fiesta running one of the biggest clubs in the world, while the likes of Junior Vasquez, Frankie Knuckles and David Morales flew in from New York to play.”
A field of their own
Among the key players involved in taking the Cream concept out into the open air was John Reynolds, one of Ireland’ s most influential music promoters. At the back end of 1997, Reynolds introduced
Barton to Mean Fiddler’ s Vince Power and Melvin Benn, the then promoters of dance music festival Tribal Gathering. At the time, Reynolds was operating the Pod nightclub and venue, and would later go on to launch the Electric Picnic festival.
“ Tribal Gathering wasn’ t due to take place in 1998, so the Mean Fiddler had a gap and John suggested they talk to us,” says King.“ One of the reasons why James [ Barton ] is so successful is that he has great timing and makes great decisions, this was another of those moments. He came back from the meeting and announced,‘ We ' re doing a music festival’, and Creamfields was born.”
The first Creamfields took place at the Matterley Bowl in Winchester on 2 May 1998 with a lineup including Daft Punk. Cream oversaw the booking and marketing for the one-day event while Mean Fiddler produced and promoted it.
“ It was a really great learning curve for me,” says King.“ I ' d been to Tribal Gathering, at that point we were agents for the likes of Graham Park and Roger Sanchez so I booked some of those artists into it. But when we did our own festival, it was a real eye opener. I ' d run arena shows but not an outdoor show, so it was fascinating to see the difference between a production delivery and an infrastructure and production delivery, and the way in which your responsibility of producing the event changed significantly. We learned a lot, mostly through observation, because it was Melvin who ran it.”
Now at WME, artist agent David Levy had brought the likes of Paul Oakenfold, for his famous residency, to the Cream nightclub and he became closely involved in the launch of Creamfields.
Says King,“ When we were working on the first Creamfields we went to see Barry
WHAT OTHERS SAY...
“ Like all great promoters, there are only two things that matter to Jim. Number one is the artist having a great environment to perform in, and all the tools to do a fantastic show. Number two is the audience having a great environment to experience and watch music, a setting that lifts the whole evening. Artists know Jim always prioritises both of those.”
CAA MD Rob Light accessaa. co. uk 23