- I expected a lot from Jonathon Lisle. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting to hear, but I just assumed it was going to be top notch. Having heard almost every available mix from the man (Kiss100 mixes, his new CD etc) I knew he could put together a stellar mix, and was not just a little excited about three hours from him at a great venue.
Dan Mangan warmed up to the crowd beautifully, cruising from relaxed prog-breaks into more dance floor friendly numbers he had people shaking and ready for the Jon Lisle onslaught. What followed was perhaps the best three hours of electronic music I’ve ever heard live in a club. Jon started slowly…well the first track did anyway. As the rumbling bass and tribal drums swelled steadily the crowd was impelled to start shaking. Before realisation crept in we were bouncing to strong four- four numbers that had the floor grooving. The first of his three hours was rocking, at times uplifting, at times epic; it had constant strong beats, layers of effects, sometimes haunting melodies and sinister baselines; however most of the time is was everything at once.
Jon started to get a little sinister next, chucking dark samples and bringing in the breaks. And boy did the people love it. (Jon said after he finished that the crowd was absolutely mental). The last hour and a half or so saw Jon mixing in and out of breaks, building the crowd up with huge breakdowns, and sending the dance floor crazy. Matthew Dekay’s “Bad” was a huge crowd-pleaser, as were about 20 other tracks I couldn’t spot. His finish with the drum’n’bass mix of Future Sound of London’s “Papua New Guinea” was massive, which if the jumping crowd didn’t make it obvious Jon going mental behind his machinery certainly did.
Apart from wicked track selection from Jon, one of the most exciting things was seeing him turning knobs, pushing cross-faders, and generally fiddling with his machinery (quite an extensive collection that it was). He was clearly manipulating melodies, beats, bass and everything in between. A push of a button introduced a sound, and a twist of a knob edited it into something different altogether.
Following on from Jon, Phil K was stellar also. Starting with seriously twisted and quirky beats he rounded the night off with beautifully dark and dirty breaks which had almost everyone left in the venue dancing. He really was on song, and “Cloud Break” into “Spitfire” was massive!
Sunday was an amazing night of music and DJ skill, one that won’t be shortly forgotten.