Part of the Weekend Never Dies

Bank holiday weekends are always good for gigs and this one was no exception; in fact, dance music fans in particular were spoiled for choice over the past few days with Villalobos, Dr. Lecktroluv, Cassius, MSTRKRFT and Soulwax all bringing their shows to town, not to mention the Dubstep/D’n’B/techno extravaganza that was Sibin taking place in Balbriggan on Saturday. While I realize it’s physically impossible to be in two places at the one time, I did make a good effort, getting to four gigs over the space of four days. Read all about it here…

Repping for club nights is a pretty sweet gig. Not so much the forcing flyers on people bit but rather the free gigs in exchange for sticking up posters part of the deal. My friend (whose identity I shall veil thinly by using the pseudonym Grain) and I, having been reps for a popular Wednesday night for quite a while now and tiring of being ill-treated by the bouncers in its host venue decided not to change allegiances entirely but to “expand” our promotion whorieness to bigging up Mr. Jones as well, tempted by the promise of free Electric Picnic tickets at the end of the summer.

Our first gig involved looking after Junior Boys when they played the Pod last Thursday. Upon arrival at around midnight, we wondered if the venue was open yet, as things looked deathly quiet. The turn out was underwhelming to say the least. In fact, there couldn’t have been more than 60 people there… Promotion for this gig was not the best, and it is exam season after all.

At least that’s the excuse we used when trying to explain to Matt and Jeremy why there were so few people on the floor in front of them… The boys were nay impressed. Having said that, they spun a great mix with Matt starting things off with a techno set before Jeremy moved onto a bit more house and disco. Having played a live set to what they described as an “awesome” crowd in Whelan’s last year, Thursday night was not exactly what they were expecting. Despite this, some friends of mine did earn the title of “Dance Nazis” from the boys in their attempts to fill the floor with their moves!

So what to do when there are no crazy after-parties to go to?, Well, if you’re Grain you bring the Junior Boys back to a grimy student house in Ranelagh for a few smokes and some wine picked up in a dodgy Indian restaurant… Crazy times… cough. Needless to say, the boys who rent the house and the few other stragglers at the party were slightly bemused when Matt decided to play some Booka Shade on youtube while broadcasting the fact that these boys are his “homies” and that Richie (Hawtin) and he are “tight”. The name-dropping did not go down well alas but Grain is quite sure the “guests” enjoyed themselves, even if chilling with students is not the usual thing for big names DJs to do of a Thursday!

Variety being the spice of life, I ended up at Jamie Lidell on Saturday. This was a complete spur of the moment gig, but what a gig it was. Having been offered a ticket at the last minute, I moseyed on over to the Academy not really knowing what to expect. Lidell appeared on stage shortly after nine, bounding on to play a live set with his band. Soulful and danceworthy with a heavy dose of funk, Lidell’s songs warmed the crowd up nicely for the DJ set/beat-boxing/crazy dancing performance that was to follow. As a performer Lidell is charismatic and full of energy with a superb singing voice to boot. While his sound is most certainly commercial, he (and his band) spice up the live show enough that he appeals to fans of a whole range of genres. He delivered an extremely impressive and varied performance that had us dancing from start to finish. A definite recommendation.

Sunday night was back to back fun. The evening kicked off with Radio Soulwax/2manydjs at Dublin Castle. The combination of beautiful weather, excellent surroundings and an act that never fail to impress made for a wonderful kick off to an evening of dancing. This was my third time seeing 2manydjs in the past year, but as always they were great, and equally so playing their nite versions live. Here’s a peek at them playing their remix of LCD Soundsytem’s ‘Get Innocuous” [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUzEVFdI_q8&feature=related]

Unfortunately licensing laws cut the show off at 10.30 much to the dismay of many wanting to continue the festivities but having taken this into account in advance we made our way onwards to Spy where MSTRKRFT and Gui Boratto were both spinning the tunes.

MSTRKRFT played the Black Room upstairs while Gui pumped minimal in the darker depths of Wax. I spent most of night upstairs in the sweaty surroundings of Spy. Hotter than ever, entering the upstairs room was literally like walking into a steam room. Sounds unpleasant but the heat really was unbearable, even more so than usual. So much so in fact that by the end of the night a lot of people had left. Silly, silly folk… Having persevered, despite the heat we were glad to hear that 2manydjs (presumably having enjoyed themselves at Dublin Castle) decided to roll on up to Spy where they played another set to a group of contented customers. I do get the impression that very few people actually realized that the boys who’d just stepped in to DJ were in fact the Belgians themselves but you can’t really complain when you’ve got that many quality acts under the one roof on the one night.

The music in Spy on Sunday was really top notch, an excellent mix of quality electro, cheesy pop and random 90s dance hits to cater to everyone’s tastes, with minimal just a staircase away if that’s what you were looking for. This song has been on constant repeat in my head ever since in fact, thanks to MSTRKRFT.

All in all, it was a pretty hectic weekend but worth it all the same. Roll on post exam craziness over the June Bank Holiday weekend. See y’all out and about!