- Being the gentleman he is, Chris Lum volunteered his fine services to the Globe for a midweek bash that has got to go down as one of the best Tuesday nights I’ve spent. Originally advertised as a three hour set, it was later announced that Chris would rather do his own warm-up and so started in the daylight hour of 8 o’clock, extending to a 4 hour set. The Globe crew allowed free entry and with the word passing around quickly, it was certain the club would fill quickly.
Fearing the Globe would be full capacity by 8:30, I arrived by 8:15 to find the dancefloor modestly filled. Chris was playing slow and deep grooves, trying to set the mood for what would unfold into a performance of absolute mastery. I’ve always been skeptical of long sets, thinking that 3 hours is the most a DJ can hold a crowds attention with their particular style for and so thought that four hours was too long.
But as I said earlier, mastery was being performed, the tempo did not change much until 9:30 where an Ashanti track was played and, symbolizing a change in his set, began to escalate with louder percussions in his track selection, increasing and increasing with each track in a downstairs inferno. The size of the crowd making the temperature rise and creating a very smoky atmosphere.
My favourite part of his set was between ten to 11:30 where track after track of tunes you couldn’t resist forming the widest grin to were played. Apart from a beat-mixing error, his performance escalated smoothly making one heck of a satisfied crowd. MC’ing into his earphones (who would have thought?) Chris Lum helped his set reach crowd expectations…
“This is the shit right here”
being repeatedly uttered then followed by “I’ll House You” by the Jungle Brothers got the crowd into a frenzy.
Upstairs, which I admittedly didn’t see much of was a change to the heat providing air-conditioned rooms via the slowest elevator I’ve been across. It just wouldn’t show up. Although most of the remaining crowd did migrate to the upper level of the club, it was still a bit disappointing to see much of what was the previous crowd leave and not show much homage to the supporting DJ’s.
At midnight the dancefloor emptied quickly with people forcing themselves home to be dragged to work the next day.With a crowd mostly known to each other, thanks to another board I keep forgetting the name of (?), and some prepared and daring enough to go the little bit further and show up in costume, all were pleased with an applause ringing to finish off his set.