Stretching from the rave explosion of the early ‘90s to the development of nu-school breaks around the end of the millennium, producer/remixer/DJ Rennie Pilgrem has led the way.

Rennie Pilgrem has established himself as one of the industry figure heads. He has been voted ‘Most Valuable/Influential Person’ at The International Breaks Awards four years running and last year also picked up awards for Best Single “2Freaks”, and Best Remix. To add to his success he continues to DJ all over the world enthralling audiences with his dancefloor-friendly funk-infused breaks sets.

With the spectacle of Rennie Pilgrem dawning on me, and a support line-up that is sure to keep the party rolling till the early hours with Phil K finishing off the night, I put my dancing shoes and jumped in my very late ride.

I walked into the almost capacity venue with a crowd raring for more, I had myself asking, “what will the master of the banging break beats enthral us with tonight?” The spectacle of Rennie Pilgrem was short lived. It wasn’t that he didn’t play for the crowd, nor did he try to hold back on their urge for more, it’s just that our old time faithful couldn’t find the momentum that we have become so accustom to over the years. A little less time with the torch over the decks would have added to the atmosphere, and somebody please take the dancing robots off the visualisations (honestly what was going on there, robots dancing in a line in time with one another, while surely a robot dj was busting out the freshest robot tunes on offer).

I don’t blame the fifty or so people who left before the show ended, I was tempted to as well, the sound from the speaker wasn’t warm, more a tinny, scratchy, distorted sound, and when I did leave my ears were ringing for hours. As the set finished off with some classics and commercial pleasers, a brief applause was heard before the crowd made a run for it. The atmosphere was gone, so was half the crowd, and my dancing shoes began to feel like lead.

This was the third time I’ve seen Rennie, and it was quite a sad and immediate ending to a night which I expected so much more out of (please fix the visualisations).