- Sasha – The return of magical progressive
The hype surrounding this event had reached fever pitch over the last couple of weeks, almost to a stage where perhaps expectations could not be reached. Well for many on Saturday, Sasha reached and exceeded those expectations, with a display of sinister baseline driven moments and chilled beats intertwined with a flurry of melodic riffs and trademark Sasha magic.
Before this Ben Korbel played a great warm up for the man like. Never bordering above the peak time madness that was guaranteed with Sasha, Ben played a true warm up set. Using deeper track to encapsulate the audience, tracks such as Slacker’s sinister mix of Moby’s “In This World” and Evolution’s 2002 mix of Pako & Frederik’s classic “Western Approaches” kept many on their feet warm for the aural feast that awaited them. Ben ended beautifully with Fretwell’s delicious mix of Belgian duo Pole Folder & CP’s “Dust”. Ben’s has been in excellent form this year, and sometimes he saves his best for his warm up set’s – very much in the same vein as Danny Howells when he was resident at Bedrock in the UK. He has often upstaged many big acts after him like Dave Seaman last year, but today was to be the day of Alexander the Great.
Sasha’s opening half hour could only be described as a tease. For me it was lovely music but perhaps belonged on a cd rather than a live set. Either way it was the calm before the storm as the sounds of Zabiela’s mix of Boomclick’s “Homegrown” started off his set followed by his very own “Magnetic North”. It was an opening filled with broken beats and atmospheric sounds.
He then stepped up a gear and the middle hour or two of his set was almost the Sasha of old, melodies ringing in magical patterns. It was spellbinding moment after each other, with tracks such as the brilliant R.C.M. mix of Underworld’s “3D Dinosaur Adventure” rippling the dancefloor. It may have been the vocals of Aidan Lavelle in “Rise” by Mode, the James Holden inspired “Bloodlock”, or the Mike Coglin and Sasha mash up interestingly titled “Enjoy the Gravy”. A solid remix of Fischerspooner’s “Emerge” also dropped jaws as did the big room appeal of “Big Drama” by Pete Heller & Ted Patterson, signaling his set moving from melodic elements to dirty baseline driven monsters. ADD’s “Use Only the Drugs” was one such track, as Sasha put the specially requested sound system to its paces with evil synths and chopped up drum patterns. The night ended off predictably with another mash up, this time “Cowgirl” & “Xpander” being the two tunes in question, and perhaps from a sign of God, the heaven’s opened with a light sprinkle to cool down those who had been subjected to a 3 hour workout from Mr. Coe after holding back throughout all of his set.
It was one of the best sets this year by a Progressive DJ, up there with Danny Howells at Two Tribes, and knocking off previous efforts by Steve Lawler and Kasey Taylor in particular. The man like has still got what it takes to deliver a memorable mix.
Trent Anthony had the hard job of following one of the finest DJ’s in the world, but did so very well driving the night home with some peak time prog such as Chris Lake’s “Climbatize”. By all accounts the locals in Robbie Lowe, Declan and Phil Smart also contributed to it being a great day out. It’s not often you get a quality party like this where expectations are so high and yet everything done by the promoters and DJ’s on the day exceed the expectations. So bravo goes to those behind the scenes and those who attended to make it such a memeorable day out.