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Here is a little review.
This was the first time I played second at the Brighton events, because Mark Iliffe was on warm up duties. He is one of the best warm up DJs I've ever seen, and knows exactly how to tee things up for the next DJ. He played some tunes I was familiar with from his other sets, with the focus being on deep melodies and atmosphere. As the club started to fill up about an hour in to his set, I thought he read the crowd perfectly, by bringing in some amazing deep housey vibes with interesting basslines - you could see everyone starting to bounce around and fill up the dancefloor. By the time he finished, they were eating out of the palm of his hand, and I think he could have carried on all night.
I was wondering before I went on if I should carry on in the same direction because it was clearly working, but he then dropped Sasha - Coma, followed by the Funkagenda remix of Expander, which set me up to start playing some more trancey stuff. Total pro! The room was pretty much full now and everyone was bouncing up and down. I was so pleased with how easy it seemed to be to get people going. At other gigs I often have to really work hard to find out what direction I need to go, but the crowd at JOOF Editions is so clued up and open minded that they will go for anything! I could just focus on keeping the flow and trying to build some tension before increasing the energy, which is a rare treat!
Towards the end of my set it was packed and I thought to myself that it might have been time to ramp up the energy a little. I was a bit concerned that I didn't want to peak the crowd too much before John took over and played the headline set, so as he was crouching down behind me eating a cornish pasty, I decided to ask him if he was comfortable with me playing a little psy. He just said to me not to worry about him, and give the crowd what they wanted. I'm really glad he is not a diva about these things as I know of some DJs who would strictly forbid their warm up DJs from doing their job. As I played the first psy bassline there was a roar from the crowd and I thought I had made the right decision! I even managed to play a cheeky bootleg that I had made a few weeks ago which got a good reaction!
John took over and as ever played an amazing set. There was a nice blend of progressive house, techno, psy and trance. Some tunes that I remember are Relaunch - Blue Room, The Digital Blonde - Rainsong, KAN - Atmosfear, Loco & Jam - Esadio, Allaby - Imaginarium (Burn in Noise remix), E-Clip - Crow, Astral Projection - One and Airwave - Atlas Winds. The really interesting thing is that I left him at 129 bpm and he kept it around there for his entire set. Right at the end I looked at the CD-J and it still said 130. He told me later that he wanted to raise the energy through his mixing and track selection rather than relying on the tempo - and it definitely worked at treat. This also allowed Juno Reactor to go anywhere with his set.
For the rest of the night I spent a lot of time chatting to friends and enjoying the atmosphere. Juno played some interesting goa trance and a lot of his own productions. It wasn't anything like a normal DJ set (as I guess you would expect), but that brought something different and fun to the night - it was totally unique.
Dan brought things to a close nicely as usual. He opened on Cosmithex - Stone Cold before jacking the energy up with some full power psy. A great end to an amazing night - loved it
So there you go - I hope you enjoy my mix, and if you live in the UK, don't ever miss this event! I think the next one will be in October
Last edited by JonDC on Jun-08-2012 at 11:02
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