inthemix | Event Coverage | 'Mashed Tour' feat. Kissy Sell Out & Aston Shuffle @ The Family, Brisbane (03/04/08)

Arriving to The Family at around 1am, I was able to catch the last half of Aston Shuffle’s set and was immediately treated to The Presets My People, which sounded oh so sweet in a context that is removed from the twangy commercial radio stations that you can’t always avoid. They had the dancefloor full with their long build ups, and a much tougher electro house then I expected.

Although more could be said about the boys from Canberra, to me this was all about the Kissy Sell Out performance, and the best 10 minutes of Aston’s set was when Kissy was floating around the DJ booth, and I was able to have a chat to him and get my record signed. My excitement built for his set as he flipped through his CDs, changing his mind on how he would work in his intro every time the Shuffle decided they had time for one more track. But I would not have to wait for long until Kissy got up and dropped the intro to his Bolt Action Five remix, making the crowd go all, “Be Kissy friend, Be Kissy foe, Kissy Sell Out has got no doe!” which turned into a building loop as he stood on top of the decks with his arms in the air and the familiar 90s synths of 2 Unlimited Get Ready For This dropped into his own mashed up remix with Ali Love Get Ready for the K Hole, and the screams from the Family’s floor and the balcony echoed above the lasers and two hours of fun begun.

This 23-year old boy from the East of England could not wipe the smile off his face, as he started playing his favourite tunes from the other side of the world to a bunch of screaming kids from Brisbane. Always one for eccentric fashion and pulling it off so well, Kissy’s kit included a shirt that was as long as a dress and plastic spectacles hanging from his neck as an accessory to his mullet. It was this mullet that might have fit in a little better around the same time as ACDC released Thunderstruck, but there it was as – when Kissy was dropping the Crookers remix 18 years later. The clear enjoyment Kissy was showing was rubbing off on the rest of the crowd, with every breakdown accompanied by screams and hands waving for his attention. Kissy would reply by making the kids hearts vibrate and their feet never stop moving, with such tracks like Herve’s remix of Larry Tee’s Licky.

Leading up to the half way point of Kissy’s set, it was still a full on electro onslaught leaving no real opportunity to rest and this was evident by the fact that I had not, and would not stop dancing until he played his last track. The diversity of his set was incredible, mixing so many genres in and outside the dance music world which included the old and the new. It was great to hear some of the hottest tracks in the scene dropped on Family’s soundsystem for what would have to be the first time, including Switch’s remix of Hideaway by the Erol Alkan produced Mystery Jets. My excitement was peaking however when Kissy would drop his own remixes, which he did on several occasions throughout his set. When I heard his remix of Chromeo’s Fancy Footwork for the first time ever in a club, I found myself in a state of complete awe. One of Kissy’s other trade marks is the ‘Air Horn’ that he brings to every one of his gigs, using it to inject excitement and anticipation into the crowd. He got this idea from his days as a drum n’ bass fan, and this love for drum n’ bass also explodes at the end of his remix of Fancy Footwork where the 4/4 is replaced by a break beat – creating plenty of confusion inside The Family walls.

Come the 3am section of his set, and things would soon get a little harder but not before a couple of indie/electro tunes that included the fantastic Focker by Late of the Pier and to quote Kissy after his set, “They are going to be massive!!”. For about the next 20 mins Kissy would explore the old sounds of rave including some hard trance and 4 Strings’s Take Me Away which surprised, yet in no way disappointed anyone in the room. There were massive beats and Kissy’s hands would be in the air pumping for the drops, making my view from the balcony to the dance floor interesting as I could see the young punters trying to keep up. These harder tracks were accompanied by a couple of tougher electro ones including Kissy’s own mash named Let There Be Blazing Light and Midfield General’s Disco Sirens which is a track produced by Xaiver from Justice, and mixed by David from Soulwax. How could you go wrong?

With half an hour to go, I thought things could not really get any better but little did I know that the real noise was still to come! As Kissy looped Every Body Has Been Looking For Some Thing from Sweet Dreams, the crowd gained a second wind and when the crazy soloed synths of Kissy’s own Harriet belted through the speakers I completely lost the plot; so much so an off duty staff member of The Family told me I needed to calm down or I would be kicked out. This was a little hard when he went straight into his remix of Wind It Up by Gwen Stefani, then into a remix of One More Time and then into his remix of All Saints’ Chick Fit. All that distortion, all those synthed up keyboard riffs, all that Kissy and we were all in heaven. With fifteen minutes to go Kissy did the right thing for me and slowed it down a little opting to finish with some 80s pop beach house, disco and hip hop that included Girls Just Want To Have Fun, The Jackson Five and a Thriller remix. If only every two hours of every night was filled with that much joyful emotion, then a part of the weekend would never die.