- Two days after the official release of his debut album "Sexor", Tiga decided to continue his big week by braving the elements to come and play a mid-week set in Finland. Helsinki's Rosegarden club quickly proved to be the perfect choice with an amazing atmosphere and capacity crowd (who seemed to have scant regard for the following day's toils) in the venue, right from the very start.
Resident DJ, Joe Le Bon, was in no mood to simply contain the crowd and the tone was set for the night with songs such as the 2005 Remixed version of Christopher Just's "I'm A Disco Dancer" and In-N-Out's "EQ-Lizer". But tonight was all about Tiga, and his appearance behind the decks was greeted with whistles and roars even before he'd played a single record.
Tonight's gig wasn’t an official date for his "Sexor" album tour and Tiga made sure this was soon known, starting with the Phones Disco Edit of the Bloc Party’s 'Banquet'. He continued down this unpredictable path by paying homage to many of the producers who worked on his album, like Soulwax, playing their “NY Excuse”. Still, there weren’t any complaints from the crowd, who were dancing in every possible way and in every possible place.
It wasn't until thirty minutes in that Tiga eventually dropped a track from the new album, his most recent single “U Gonna Want Me”, which received the same reception as an ageing rock group playing a medley of hits finale. While it was clear he certainly wasn't here to give a master-class in mixing or push the underground, he was here to party, and his song selection more than made up for any technical shortfalls.
Dropping two further well-known tracks from his album: “Louder Than A Bomb” and “Pleasure From The Bass”, it was obvious that tonight Tiga was gunning for the crowd pleasers. Though shortly after, he put away the new album - no further tracks coming from it for the remainder of the night. He did however continue to keep the peeps on the dancefloor with a selection of his favourite electro house records over the next half hour.
The audience was reminded of Tiga's skills as a producer and remixer when he played some of his big 2005 remixes like his take on Tomas Anderson's “Washing Machine" and LCD Soundsystem's “Tribulations", both big highlights of his set, and the night. It was always going to be hard following those and his remix of Nelly's “Hot In Herre” soon after was a nice way of rounding out proceedings as he completed his set.
Tiga’s exit saw the dancefloor suddenly stop resembling a rush hour train in Calcutta as Joe le Bon returned to play a more minimal set with the Dominik Eulberg remix of Nathan Fake's "Dinamo" kicking things off nicely. Le Bon played on for another hour but the emptying dancefloor made it clear who people had come to see. A real pity actually as Le Bon is one of Helsinki’s best DJs.
In Finnish, the word for Wednesday 'keskiviiko' means small weekend. It would seem that whoever coined the term must have already had an idea about the Rosegarden club on a Wednesday night in 2006.
Special thanks to Staffan and all staff at the Rosegarden.