House’s current hottest First Lady, Maya Jane Coles, made her Liverpool debut to an intimate crowd at Circus in The Hold at the Shipping Forecast this weekend. Getintothis’ Ben Rossington was one of the lucky ones to be in attendance.
‘You don’t know anyone with a spare ticket for downstairs do you, mate?‘
If I had a pound for every time I’d been asked that while stood in the Shipping Forecast‘s main bar waiting for the doors to Circus to open I’d have, well, probably about a tenner but there was only one ticket in town on Saturday.
Maya Jane Coles‘ Liverpool debut in The Hold underground at the Slater Street alehouse was where house fans needed to be.
There’s no strobes or lasers or big club bullshit (I don’t even wanna know how much a beer is in Ministry or Pacha nowadays).
In The Hold it’s all about a top quality sound-system and top quality tunes to bounce off the walls.
It’s dark, it’s sweaty, it’s what clubbing should be. The Circus crowd know their scene and they know their tunes.
So when it was announced that only 200 tickets (so as not to ram it to capacity) were going for this Saturday’s event, the ‘sold out’ sign went up not long after.
This was a chance to see one of the hottest up-and-coming DJs of the moment play a gig that I doubt she’ll do many more of. Her star is rising quick.
July was a good month for MJC (as she’s probably not known to any of her friends). Radio One’s Essential Mix to start the month, Global Gathering on Friday night then smashing it (not in the Richard Keys way) at Circus on Saturday.
Book-ended by residents Lewis Boardman and Yousef, Coles was who most were there to see.
Boardman kicked off the night as the crowds filtered in from the main bar upstairs before turning the screw, upping the tempo and virtually forcing people to get those bodies moving.
Both he and Coles dropped Eats Everything – Entrance Song and dOP – Your Sex – if a good tune’s worth hearing once, it’s worth hearing twice, and these are damn good tunes.
And at about half 12 the diminutive Londoner took over the reigns.
Anyone standing more than a few feet back from the DJ booth probably struggled to actually see the night’s star attraction as she was almost hidden by the decks (there was even a rumour going round the back of the room that she hadn’t turned up because they couldn’t see her. Bonkers).
But her tech house/deep tech (whatever you wanna call it) sound filled the room.
Playing mostly a set of her own stuff and remixes, it was Daniel Dubb & Strict Border‘s Jeebus that got possibly the biggest reaction of the night when she dropped it half-way through.
And her grooves kept the crowd up for the rest of her set before she handed over to Circus‘s main man, Yousef.
She stuck around in town afterwards – spotted in Burger King at Lime Street early Sunday afternoon feeding that morning-after-the-night-before craving.
After Cole’s departure, the crowd thinned out a bit but those who stayed to the end weren’t to be disappointed.
It could have been a risk taking it out of its normal home at The Masque, they certainly would’ve filled the bigger venue, but it’s nights like this, in smaller, different venues, that sets Circus apart and keeps the likes of Maya Jane Coles coming back.
