- Walking down 82 Great Eastern Street's steep stairs, I was greeted by a flooded set of toilets and the echoing of Art Department's "Without You." For Love Fever's night featuring Larry Heard, I couldn't have been more confused (and concerned) by my initial encounters.
Photo credit: Andy Bird
On turning the corner at the bottom of the stairs, however, my worries eased at the sight of the double height warehouse with gigantic balloons spanning the entire ceiling and Love Fever's ever present disco ball darting light reflections all across the rammed space. At only 1:30 AM, the writhing bodies of the crowd were already in full swing and Andy Bird's set had swiftly moved on from "Without You" into deep house that was steering them into a frenzy. By the time the slight framed Chicago producer Larry Heard climbed into the podium style booth with a lit-up red Love Fever heart behind him at 2 AM, the crowd had been coaxed into excitement by the warm-up sets and were anxious for their headliner to begin.
The offbeat choice of a first track is often hit-or-miss and, on this occasion, it was unfortunately the latter. Heard quickly rescued himself from the syncopated mishap, though, and delved into a series of tight palpitating drumbeats and melodic basslines which lowered any raised eyebrows back into place. Over the next few hours the enthusiastic floor was treated to a set manipulated by his first class ability to balance subdued chords and synths with rapid bass and techy rhythms. The common theory of the DJ feeding the crowd and the crowd feeding the DJ could not have been more apparent, with tracks such as Marcus Enochson's remix of Koop's "Summer Sun" and his own "The Sun Can't Compare" resulting in such encouragement from his audience that it, in turn, appeared to inspire Heard himself.
Photo credit: Andy Bird
Despite two roadblocks of sound on either side of the booth, we kept moving further and further into the heart of the floor for better volume and sound quality. Yet, even there, the volume was surprisingly low. At around 3:30 AM, though, on my return from the fixed toilets, the volume levels were suddenly where they should have been all along. An earlier technical difficulty? A sudden decision inspired by the music and atmosphere? I have no idea, but it was the right move. The last hours of Love Fever moved things to another level. And just as this night was coming to a reluctant close, a surprise live PA from Robert Owens tippled the already outstanding display of deep house excellence into a rather epic treat.