- In a congested arena of DJs vying for recognition and attention, Lee Burridge is an anomaly. The understated gentleman of dance music has little time for the self-aggrandising media stunts and popularity polls of some of his peers on the big league circuit; he prefers to let his sets do the talking, and that's exactly what he did at the opening event for the Global Breakthrough tour, currently underway in Cape Town.
The Opium complex in the heart of Green Point played host to the double onslaught of Burridge in the main courtyard and Defected house hero DJ Spen on the inside floor. After an energetic electrotech workout from local DJ AK47, Burridge took to the decks in front of a well-primed crowd. Building his set from the ground up with a series of spacious minimal cuts for the first half hour, he effortlessly slipped into second gear, ratcheting up the pace with bigger percussive tracks from the likes of Pier Bucci, Bart Skils and others. After an hour he was at full pace, tossing out savage bass drops and moody synth loops, perhaps prefacing his renewed involvement with the Tyrant sound. Avoiding the usual stack of digital effects units and other toys that crowd most DJ booths these days, his programming was nothing short of faultless. Not once did the direction falter or seem under question, the only way out was up. By the time Gabriel Ananda's latest unpronounceable masterpiece thudded into the crowd, the night was well on track for a sweaty, frenzied climax. Meanwhile, on the inside floor the rest of the party was being lifted off the ground by Spen's trademark soaring Jersey house.
Even the closing of the courtyard due to a management oversight couldn't throw Burridge off course. As the crew gathered up equipment around him he merely packed his bags and headed for the back room of the club where he continued to keep the pressure up, playing progressively deeper and darker for the next few hours until the close of the party. Bruno Morphet joined him for the last hour for a back to back session, and when the lights finally came on, the packed club was unwilling, and indeed in some cases unable, to go home.
The club emptied out slowly and people made their way into another perfect Cape sunrise peeping out over the slopes of Table Mountain. Far from slinking back to the comfort of his hotel, Burridge carried on the party with an intimate gig at a villa in Camps Bay, cementing his reputation as one of the most affable guys in the business.
This was just the first night of Global Breakthrough 2007, but if it's anything to go by, the events of the next two weeks hold a lot in store for Cape Town and its clubbing population.