Kid Kenobi couldn’t seem to make up his mind at Chinese Laundry on Saturday night. Did he want to play a strictly kosher set peppered with the odd mainstream number here and there to keep the tourists happy, or did he want to appeal to the Laundry faithful and play more ‘underground’ (that dreaded word) fodder? In the end, it seemed, his indecisiveness led to a confusing and at times frustrating evening that managed to alienate and confound both groups.

A surprisingly sparsely-populated Chinese Laundry was warmed up by one of the club’s staple DJs, Jeff Drake, whose set was succesfully pitched at just the right balance between chart-fringe safe territory and easter eggs for the more obscurely-tasted; Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine, and a dubstep mix of Darude’s classic Sandstorm give you an idea of the kind of mesh that Drake was going for.

When Kenobi took to the stage, however, it was a different story. His soundscape lurched from the pedestrian to the opaque, just straddling the line between ‘keeping it fresh’ and pleasing the great unwashed, in that almost timid manner of having just enough edge to perform. Moving from recent chart hit Coming Home by Diddy-Dirty Money (or whatever Sean Combs is calling himself these days) to *Chase & Status*’ Blind Faith, to an intriguing Reggae-ton / San Juan remix of Bass Cannon by Flux Pavillion, Kenobi’s set had, for the most part, less intelligence and subtlety than you’d expect from a Chinese Laundry performer.

There were times when his set was remorselessly and unapologetically commercial, what you’d call ‘house-by-numbers’, not necessarily in content but certainly in tone. The mixes also felt, at times, unimaginative and, consequently, conflicting – being told to ‘Shake that ass and drop it low’ by some chart-dwelling hip-hopper just as I’m recovering from a dubstep swell may be labelled as innovative fusion by some, but for me the set lacked cohesion.

As the evening progressed, the set became more and more reliant on dubstep, although there was still time for the ever-ubiquitous chart-troll that is *Dizzee Rascal*’s Bonkers to rear its mischievious, impish head – this tune in particular roused the crowd into a flurry of leaping and dancing, as the slim crowd that did populate Laundry on Saturday night found ample space to groove and head-nod appreciatively.

Kid Kenobi neglected to communicate and swagger through the microphone as so many DJs and wannabe MCs seem to be prone to in these types of intimate, basement sets – he let his music do the talking and, to focus on the positives, he’s clearly an excellent DJ with an ear for good music to dance to. What I would call into question, however, is the structure and flow of his set; bangers jarred maddeningly with crispy chart vanilla in a way that instead of pleasing everybody, served only to remind the listeners that Kenobi’s set had just enough idiosyncrasy to err on the safe side of being simultaneously atypical and quotidian.