- While it might not be immediately obvious how you're supposed to get to matter after getting off the tube, the throngs of eager revellers gave a pretty good indication that we were indeed heading Bugged Out-wards. And, on this night, a 15 minute queue at the door actually turned out to be a good thing—it gave everyone time to get properly excited about the prospect of Tiga's first appearance in the UK in ages.
Luckily, we burst through matter's heavy double doors just as the Canadian took to the decks. We threw ourselves onto the already packed dance floor and suddenly matter made sense: With hundreds of people already madly dancing, there was a great sense of intimacy but still room to get close enough to the DJ booth to connect with the man himself. What's more, the club's fantastic soundsystem meant that everything sounded bloody brilliant.
When we eventually took a break from the main dance floor—right after Tiga played new single "Mind Dimension"—we made another wonderful discovery: the perennial popularity of Bugged Out! meant that the fabled third floor balcony was open for business. As a result, two of matter's most amazing features were accessible—its suspended walkway and the illuminated disco floor. We can therefore confidently report that there's nothing better than dancing on some brightly coloured squares of light when "You Gonna Want Me" gets dropped by the man who made the song in the first place.
The crowd's reaction to Tiga's own production confirmed what we'd been thinking since the beginning of his set; most people were at matter because they absolutely love the man's brand of slightly campy and vocal-led electro. While they were happy to dance to the enjoyable but slightly anonymous techno he was playing, they were also ready to lose it when there was something they could sing along to. As if to prove the point, everyone went absolutely nuts when Tiga ended with Soulwax's remix of "Kids" by MGMT.
In short, a pretty damn good set from the (surprisingly) little Canadian that could have been absolutely great had he catered to the poppers o'clock, hands-in-the-air vibe the crowd were secretly longing for.
For those in that frame of mind, Philadelphia-native Josh Wink followed Tiga's set with a perfectly judged peak-time session of his trademark squelchy acid that left revellers squealing in pleasure and us so distracted that we realised once we were heading hom that we hadn't even bothered to look in on the Black Rabbit gang in Room 2. Still, they've got a residency at matter now, so missing out on the likes of Justin Robertson and The Glimmers only gives us an excuse to head back to Greenwich in a couple of months time...