Take your favourite club night, in your favourite venue and mix in your favourite ever DJ, Getintothis Stephanie Heneghan is in heaven.
It’s been a long time since I was genuinely excited to see a DJ.
The endless enthusiasm of my youth being replaced by a ‘not as good as it used to be’ lethargy.
Don’t get me wrong, despite my mum’s eye rolling ‘I thought you’d have grown out of all this by now’ disapproval, I do still enjoy the rave but at 29 I’m kind of over all the hype.
So I surprised myself when I heard about Saturday’s gig and my innate coolness gave way to a ‘Jesus Christ I have GOT to go to that!’. It seems there’s life in the old dog yet.
Before I go any further, I think it’s fair to say that a slight bias towards the positive will run throughout this summary. With one of my favourite DJ/producers playing at a night by one of my favourite clubs with one of my favourite bars as the venue, I had pretty much already made up my mind that it was going to be amazing before I went.
So if you’re one of those miserable people who hate others having fun and enjoying themselves, I think you’d probably better look away now.
Here’s my reasoning behind the amazingness. The DJ in question is Jacques Lu Cont aka Stuart Price, a man who is annoyingly good at everything he turns his hand to in music.
From DJing at Bugged Out in the early 00’s and releasing a game changing FabricLive mix, he then moved into producing some of the biggest names in the charts. Madonna, Scissor Sisters, Kylie and even Take That have been privy to his talents, he’s won Grammies for his remixing skills, he’s an all round high achiever.
Then the club. Chibuku started off like so many other nights in a small room above the now defunct Metropolitan but unlike the majority they’ve gone from strength to strength and can easily sell out Nation for one of their birthday events.
As their summer break draws to an end, they’ve broken their Shipping Forecast virginity to throw an intimate party in The Hold, inviting Mr Lu Cont out of his DJing hiatus to come and take to the decks.
So Saturday night came and having drunk away a large part of my Everton related blues (seriously, QPR? Come on lads) I headed down to the Shipping Forecast.
On the journey down there it started raining and I got all sniffy about how this was ruining my hair which in hindsight was hilarious because I was about to spend the next 4 hours in a sweaty basement.
Walking in to the top notch James Rand providing warm up duties, the place was already rammed. If I was an estate agent I’d probably describe The Hold as ‘snug’, with its low ceilings and dark corners giving the impression that it’s a lot smaller than it actually is.
Usually ‘intimate’ in promoting parlance is code for ‘we’ve oversold this night by twice its capacity so I hope you like being squashed up against someone’s armpit’ but there was plenty of space to dance and yes it was hot but you’re in a basement with loads of other people in the middle of August. It’s kind of to be expected. Anyway there were electric fans there and my hair was already a mess from the rain so I was past caring.
By 1am when Jacques Lu Cont took to the booth, the anticipation was tangible, tickets had sold out well before the event and so expectations were high.
Never fear though, despite not having played out for a number of years he played a tight mix of electro and house throwing in the occasional track of his own with Jacques Your Body making a welcome appearance (one lad was overhead saying, ‘This always makes me want to dance like a car‘. Quite). He managed to get the balance right between giving the crowd what they’d come to hear and playing a full on vanity set.
Other highlights included the Thin White Duke mix of Royksopp‘s What Else Is There, a luminous reworking of the laid back original and his inspired choice for a closing number, Silver Screen Shower Scene providing a fitting end to a brilliant set, with the crowd singing along to every word as the lights came up. And considering we all looked as if we’d just stepped out of the shower by this point, it was extremely apt.
That’s what you go to Chibuku for though. If you’re at all precious about your fake tan getting streaky and prefer your page 3 models churning out funky house, this is not the night for you.
But for those who just want to get down and dirty, rolling out at 3am resembling a drowned rat with a beaming smile on your face, they hit the mark every time.
Best night I’ve had in ages, I look forward to future shenanigans in The Hold. As predicted – Amazing.
James Rand‘s set is here.
