The stage was set for a dub affair at revolver on Thursday night. Comfy chairs placed lazily around the back room in provided a chill place to rest whilst we waited for the smooth flowing dub to soothe our souls. As we trudged up the steep steps of revolver the music got progressively louder until through the wire fence the beats were almost pulsing through us.
Our ears were greeted by local favorites the Red Eyes who supporting with their side project Red Eye Sound system (basically just the 3 of them – yet none less impressive as always). Having arrived rather late into the show I was only able to catch a few tracks on the tail end of their performance but as always they impressed me and the rest of the crowd. By 11 the crowd was filling up the place and whilst it was not really at capacity certainly the spacious open floor space we’d enjoyed earlier was starting to fill up in anticipation of seeing dub/reggae maestro the Mad Professor up on stage creating his magic.
Beginning with his first living room-based, four-track studio in 1980, the Mad Professor has grown a recording empire using the cutting-edge electronic technology to suit his brilliant engineering and unique style of mixing. Having done remixes of artists as disparate as Sade, Jamiroquai, the Beastie Boys, the Orb and Rancid he came to most critical acclaim through his reworking of the Massive Attack album ‘Protection’. Probably his most successful album – that work 12 years ago is still one of my most played albums still this day.
At the Revolver performance, the crowd was treated to a high-tech, roots-based reggae mix. The audience raptly swayed to the beats as the Mad Professor spun the web of his soundscape by nimbly twisting dials on his soundboard and switching DATs between songs. Basically setting his studio up on stage the Mad Professor mixed live, an extension of what he’s been doing in the studio over the past 25 years or so.
He played a solid variety of tunes, some were creations of the Mad Professor and his DAT bag of tricks–layering the rootsy rhythms and using tracks from his more than 20 years of recordings–with the Yabby You tracks and Chukki Star standing out as highlights.
As he finished up his set around 1:45 or so the crowd meandered downstairs and out the door content with what they’d witnessed – a true master of the genre performing purely for the entertainment of the 150 or so of us lucky enough to witness it.
