Fridays at Family feat. Christopher Lawrence @ Family, Brisbane (16/05/08)
From when I when I headed into the club at about 11:30pm, I knew that the man voted the #4 DJ in the DJ Mag ‘Top 100’ poll in ‘06 was going to provide an interesting evening. After all, he’s played the famous Coachella festival more than any other DJ in the world, so I knew that Christopher Lawrence would have something to offer the family crowd.
As I walked in I was met by the moving sounds of Family resident Syke was on the decks, and he seemed to be trying a different approach for a usual supporting act. In the first hour and the last parts of his set he took the crowd through the various strands of trance, ranging from some deep psytrance that I thought the crowd would not respond well to, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. From 12pm the crowd was completely under the DJs thumb, and Syke started to put layer upon layer different blends of trance to create a really unique and quite diverse set.
12:30 came… and Christopher Lawrence was in. The crowd seemed exited but at the same time appeared a little tired after such a pumping set from Syke. But after his introduction it began, and it began in style. Within seconds he had the crowd grasping for air, he did this by using actions I could only imagine being used by the Pope, as the build from a brilliant breakdown in his first track he slowly raised his arms on either side of him (picture the pope doing it) and by doing this he captured the crowd within seconds. He started his set with some very deep progressive, and after Syke’s wild set I didn’t have time to grasp for air. The build was on its way and bringing on something more and more moving every minute.
At about 1:30ish, after waiting and contemplating which tracks of his own pedigree he was actually going to throw in, I was welcomed by his 2005 classic Scorcher. This is when the real Christopher Lawrence came to life, playing some brilliant uplifting trance that had myself and the people around me wanting more. So all his production seemed to come out in one package, with tracks like Attention, Wasteland Cruise Control and Ride the light. After his spree of his own tracks I was welcomed by some gracious underground trance that I had never heard before, which was great for my own education though came across a little plain. The end of his set was approaching and he ended with a track that I was not expecting by any stretch but was pulled off amazingly well, his track from ‘03 Warp.
As he waved goodbye and the crowd gave him their farewell, I was officially stuffed and couldn’t stand for any longer so I departed quickly feeling tired but mostly satisfied. After getting home and writing this I realized that I had my hopes a little too high for his set, but as a performer Christopher Lawrence did an amazing job at capturing the crowd and keeping them grooving for his 3 hour set.
