A year or so ago a small independent film called Drive blew up and became a modern day cult classic. Part of its charm had to be the 80s inspired heavy-synth soundtrack. The standout track "Nightcall" was provided by a Russian DJ called Kavinsky.
In February a secret gig was announced with an aim to promote his new album Overdrive, so I thought I'd go along.
The secret location was Netil House in Hackney.
The space was pretty good with two laser systems and the only other light coming from the heat lamps conveniently located around the space. This explains the reddish look.
I'd not heard of any of the line-up bar the main event, so a chance to see some new acts too.
Molo had a lengthy warm up set and I'm not sure I can name his genre, quite Daft Punky in places and electroclash in others. He was clearly enjoying his set even if his audience took a little longer to warm up.
Papalu is a french hip hop DJ who I guess was invited because he'd remixed a Kavinsky track. The change in music didn't really work and the crowd would have preferred more Molo I think. Riton, who came on next brought the electro back, and his set was great. Following him was STS and Bear One who took us back to hip hop, this time the Atlanta sound interspersed with the Yo MTV Raps air horn. The music lineup was just too mixed up to get the crowd going.
After a delay the headline came out, opening with a Jarre track and including Guns n Roses and Rage Against the Machine in the set list. Very strange choices, especially given it was supposed to be an album launch performance.
His diverse play list had to be rescued which he'd do by playing his own tracks, which got the crowd back on side but he relied on this too much. He also couldn't mix very well which ruined any flow in his random set and also quite annoying he left the stage after 50 minutes. This was very disappointing!
Two Belgian guys called Mumbai Science took over and did amazing. Their sound was the best of the night and I'd easily go see these guys again.
So overall a strange evening. On the negative Kavinsky proved that he should stick to production and not play live. On the negative I discovered lots of new acts.
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