Well, what an absolutely awesome weekend! Fancuilli and Zabs Friday and Desyn on Saturday – Melbourne in Summer – you just can’t beat it. Alright, enough babble – more about Desyn!
This was definitely one of the absolute highlights for the year and who would have thought they’d see little (old) me dancing and carrying on so much to a house(y) set. It was an absolute pleasure to hear progressive, funky, electro, vocal house being played in the one set and having “Mr Balance 008” make all of these different sounds work so well!
Right from the word go the crowd were up for it and Aram Chapers did an absolutely great job warming the crowd up. Great to hear The Sky was Pink on the Honky’s sound system and also the last track on Desyn’s cd Karu – Maraud Your Ears (Tim Paris We Almost Lost Detroit Remix). The positive reaction to some lesser know, non-Nova electro also gave a hint that the crowd were definitely a little bit more educated than a usual house club punter and also would be more open to wherever the night would take us.
Desyn jumped on about 2.00am and as expected started the night off with a few very housey numbers – which were fine to groove to but didn’t really do anything more for me. Most of his sets start this way and its not till about a quarter of the way in that I usually start paying attention. He slowly built his set and threw into the mix a smattering of electro, progressive, deep, tech-house and of course garden variety house. Mixing was excellent and it was fun seeing how much care and consideration he took in choosing every single track – much like a connoisseur sampling the latest vintage – only longer and more elaborate. I remember looking around at one point and every single person in the venue had their eyes on Desyn – hanging on his every move while he was in a completely different world – going through his cds. Priceless.
The other thing that stood out were the smiles on everyone’s faces as they had a boogie. The crew I was with had a ball and I don’t think we stopped dancing the entire 3 hours Desyn tore up the place.
Standout tracks would have to be a remix/edit of Chase The Sun, We Interrupt this Program (Paul Rincon remix), Ethan – In My Heart, Discopolis and I know there was a few more but hell who cares – it was all good and most will probably be hits in a few months.
As the night progressed it was great to see Desyn warming up to the crowd – indulging in a few quick chats with fans, posing with others for photos and responding to the guys and gals cheering from the dance floor with smiles. Along with this he started to get a little bit more adventurous with mixing – riding eqs, killing basslines to slam them back in again later, quick chopping between tracks and a little bit of tasteful echoing to create mini-build ups. This definitely made watching him mix more enjoyable and interesting and I think kept him on top of his game as well. The end of the set was great and he remained generous speaking with people and posing for photographs even after the last track. To cries of, “One More”, he responded with “I’ll get my head kicked in if I play one more”. I didn’t think it was a good idea to point out that the same might happen if he didn’t keep playing.
All in all one of the best, most surprising gigs of the year.
