Never ones to resort to cliché, we would describe Diplo as an enigma wrapped in a paradox wrapped in a crunchy batter: a deep-fried true southern gentleman, trying his darndest to hide the Mohawk under his top hat. The kind of handsome, all American guy next door with an elaborate and offensive tattoo under his checked shirt. And the contradictions of the night didn’t begin or end with the diplomat behind the decks.
There is always a worry at Popfrenzy nights that upon arriving you’ll be stampeded by stovepipe clad communications students eager to prove their indie credentials by dropping reference to the latest b-side from the unknown member of the most obscure band ever. These grave concerns were gently washed away once we stepped in the door at the strangely underused underground floor of the Mandarin Club. The crowd were generally over 25, super civil, and far less conceited than the Crown Street cliques you sometimes see at gigs of this sort.
Unfortunately, this civility didn’t extend much to the warm up DJ’s: the crowd was there for one person only. But for those who had arrived and were listening, Jouzi and Strut, Sleater Brockman, and Evet Jean put in extremely respectable if somewhat under-appreciated sets. It might be seen as either a sign of the fickle superficiality of the audience, or alternatively of the undeniable appeal of the evening’s star that the warm up DJ’s played many of the same styles and similar tracks to Diplo, but were unable to rouse much action on the dance floor.
Regardless, once Diplo got behind the decks it was like Beatlemania without the bee-hives. As he neared the mixing equipment (balanced on top of a baby grand piano) there was a sudden surge of people to the front of the rainbow-underlit dancefloor. And from the first beat of the first bar, the crowd started flailing their arms and stomping their feet to the funky fresh sounds of the favelas. The dancefloor took quite a battering and at times felt like a trampoline, repeatedly launching you into the air even as you tried to stand still.
So back to the mohawked Colonel Sanders metaphor: the music ranged from unashamed pop and R&B forced through a rusty strainer into a dirty toilet, to often forgotten old punk injected with an adrenalin shot of pep. Nina Sky’s “Move Your Body”, Madonna’s “Hung Up”, and Beyonce’s “Check on It” were all given a grimy crunch for an audience that may or may not have been too ashamed to ordinarily dance to such shameless pop. And there was more deep south crunk than Ciara could poke a stick at.
Meanwhile, tracks like Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Happy House”, The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah”, and The Slits’ “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” were given makeovers so extreme that, like when Johnny Rotten was on Judge Judy, it might have all been too confusing for some. And throughout the set Diplo, always the gentleman, regularly checked up to make sure that everyone was having fun and slowed things down a few times to make sure that the crowd weren’t getting too hot, always with a smile on his face, in true southern hospitality style.
M.I.A.’s show a few weeks earlier was seen by many to have been too short, most likely explained by the fact that she never strayed far from her single album’s worth of material. Diplo, on the other hand, seemed to pay little mind to his 2004 release “Florida”. In our eyes, this was a clever decision as it would have been difficult for the album’s many DJ Shadow-esque tracks to inspire the same pop frenzy that shook the Mandarin Club on Saturday night.
These days it’s easy to find a club night full of hipsters where trashy 80’s tunes and occasional pop gems get played. What was refreshing about Diplo’s style was a lack of self-conscious irony. Sincere and serious, Diplo wore his heart on his cowboy shirt sleeve as he earnestly churned out the pop, rap, hip hop, baile funk, retro, punk, grime, electro and new wave gems. And nothing, not even “Dallas”, could match the high drama of when the staccato strings of “Papa Don’t Preach” were looped over the top of squelching percussion. By the end of the night the entire audience was left charmed, I’m sure.
