- The word "pioneer" is banded around almost as much as "genius" nowadays, being attached to anyone whose career spans longer than one series of The X Factor. One man undeniably deserving of the title, however, is Manchester's Greg Wilson; a DJ since the '70s, he spent his early career plying his trade in the UK and New York, championing the disco and electro-funk sounds which are now, as he is, enjoying a modern resurgence. Having seen Greg Wilson a number of times over the years, the biggest criticism you can level at the man is the lack of variation in his sets. If you go to see Greg Wilson or listen to his mixes, you can safely assume you're going to hear a handful of the same tracks. Half the fun, then, is listening for the curve balls, which is just what the crowd at his latest London venture were hoping he'd bring to the table.
The Horatia in Holloway was the setting for his latest voyage around the rings of planet disco. At around 11:30 PM, after a well received warm-up of sleazy disco from The Boogie Cartel and the air conditioning losing its battle against the heat of 400 disco fans crammed into a Georgian pub, the familiar figure of Wilson appeared. He started off at walking pace with the Happy Mondays' "Loose Fit," a nod to the old school casuals in the crowd in their Fila tracksuit tops tapping a boxfresh Borg Elite in time to the hazy rhythm. The familiar "Superstition" edit followed, which pleased the loyal fans, but I wasn't the only one who seemed to notice a problem with the sound at this point. It was far too muffled, and the dance floor was suffering as a consequence. From the corner of my eye I could see the promoter give the sound technician a look that would normally reduce a human to a ball of flames, but, thankfully, as tends to happen in those situations, one of the speakers sympathetically kicked back into life and harmony was resumed.
With a fully-functional system and a reinvigorated floor to play with, Wilson started to mix in earnest with his trusty Revox tape machine—a feature totally unique to his sets. The peak came with OOFT's edit of Melba Moore's "Love's Comin at Ya," which picked the room up and shook it like a snow globe, leaving the crowd to reach out to touch the flakes of disco falling from the sky. Edits old and new followed, with a brief journey into vintage house followed by Dimitri from Paris' edit of Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover." It wasn't just a case of one anthem after another, though: In between the crowd pleasers were a selection of well thought-out tracks. These gems carried the set from point to point, all while keeping the energy on the dance floor at a balance, something that has proved notoriously difficult to do for some of the disco DJs I've seen lately.
It goes without saying that a DJ of Wilson's calibre has the knowledge and ability to play some of the finest tunes his preferred genres have to offer, so after the tenth time hearing "Superstition" you start to think, "Well, where are they?" However, it's difficult to imagine somebody older than my mum being able to work a room of 20-something clubbers as adeptly as Wilson. It only highlights his continuing relevance in the house and disco scene. While accurate, assigning Greg Wilson the title of "veteran" would seem unfair, purely because it would suggest his best days are past him. After Easter Thursday's performance, you get the sense that couldn't be further from the truth.