After hearing Jesse Rose’s Essential Mix in January I was hooked. His infectious take on house has been taking dance floors by storm and his recent album, What Do You Do If You Don’t is a great slice of his sound, and a good standalone record in its own right. When news of his tour broke I put it straight into my dairy and didn’t look back.

I arrived at Billboard just in time for the start of Oliver $’s set. I seriously think the last time I was at Billboard was for some ITF turntable battle in the late nineties! It’s pretty much the way I remembered it – a fairly large space with a number of platform levels that step down to the dance floor.

The stage was decked out with the DJ booth in the centre and large screens at the back and on either side. The visuals and lighting created a great atmosphere and showed that Strobe want to go the extra miles to make their events truly memorable in the wake of grandiose festivals.

Oliver $ was rolling out some great house with a Berlin tech flavour and the dance floor was fairly busy by this point. He looked really into it and hyped up when he dropped new tunes into his mix. The crowd was responding well; even though I assumed most were there for Jesse Rose it seemed like they really liked his set. And, why not? He has been touted by Rose as a great producer and DJ, is signed to his label and has had his tracks flogged by the man. Overall, I really enjoyed Oliver $’s set. He played for around 90 minutes and didn’t disappoint once.

Rose took the stage and started pumping out some great disco flavoured house. Over his 90 minute set he interspersed tracks from his album and lots of dubs. The dance floor was packed and I didn’t stop dancing for the whole time.

Props to Strobe for putting on a great show and choosing the perfect venue for it. The concept of giving away a digital copy of the album was a great idea too and I hope more promoters roll it out in the future. Add to that the strong stylistic flavour of the gig and it was the perfect night!