Dubfire and Damian Lazarus rock Scotland

Dubfire and Damian Lazarus rock Scotland

16 July, 2008 | 2.32AM

• Written by: jamiegardiner1
• Filed under: Music News: carl craig, damian lazarus, soma

They said about Woodstock: “If you remember it you weren’t there,” and that’s certainly the case with my fragile self as I try to piece together my hectic weekend.

I followed Dubfire and Damian Lazarus from Glasgow’s Sub Club to T in the Park, (along with 80,000 others) - Scotland’s longest running music festival.

It all began on Friday evening at the Sub Club, one of Scotland’s best loved underground nightclubs, which has just celebrated 20 years.

A somewhat remarkable achievement, given the fickle nature of today’s clubbers.

The club was packed to its 400 capacity and local heroes Slam got the night underway weaving their usual laptop magic, which set up nicely for Damian Lazarus to take to the CDJ’s.

Damian’s techy 303-inspired set really got the crowd going and the roars went out when he dropped Mathew Jonson’s ‘Marionette’ (Adam Beyer Remix) near the end of a memorable set.

Dubfire then took to the decks and had the crowd eating out the palm of his hand from the start, teasing the crowd with a dubbed out looping intro of distorted minimal goodness before dropping into his recent remix of Booka Shades ‘Charlotte‘.

His set-up - a tech geek’s wet dream - consisted of 2 CDJ 1000’s, DJM-800 mixer, two Faderfox DX2 midi controllers and a shiny red MacBook Pro running no less than four Traktor decks.

It’s easy to see why the man is the talk of the industry at the moment, with flawless mixing and track selection and always with an eye on the crowd.

A very sweaty club enjoyed every minute of his bass-heavy techno set including a certain Dusty Kid, over for the following day’s festival.

Dragging myself home at closing time, I managed to grab a few hours sleep and a beer for breakfast before heading further north for the festival itself, my wife Lesley being the designated driver for the weekend.

T in the Park, set in the stunning surroundings of the Perthshire countryside, celebrated its 15th year and is easily one of the more respected UK festivals.

Acts included the Chemical Brothers, Amy Winehouse (who did actually show up!) and REM, but for the blogger it was all about the Soma Slam Tent.

With a 15,000 tent capacity, stunning sound system, high-tech visuals and some of the most up-for-it clubbers you will meet this side of the border, the festival is always a highlight in the UK clubbing calendar.

Luckily, the festival is sponsored by Scotland’s favourite beer so after helping myself to a few hangover cures as the artists began to arrive, I was off to the dance floor.

Soma’s own The Black Dog opened the days act playing tracks and re-edits from their latest album ‘Radio Scarecrow’, their tripped out unique sounds providing the perfect opening to the tent.

Dubfire and Damian Lazarus then managed to almost top their performances less than 12 hours before with deep, dirty techno sounds to blow the cobwebs off the Friday night campers before the mighty Carl Craig took things up a gear.

The Detroit icon has performed many times in Scotland over the years and turned in a fine performance as he dropped classic after classic (including ‘Strings of Life’ and ‘Knights of the Jaguar’).

Carl took to the mic at the end of his set with a heartfelt thanks to the loyal crowd who continue to support him and proclaimed the festival to be what it’s all about for him as an artist.

Dusty Kid, (sporting a retro Scotland soccer jersey probably older than himself) then followed with a tight live performance of his own material, a laptop and 2 midi controller set finishing with the awesome ‘Kore’.

Erol Alkan then worked his magic after peeling himself off the grass backstage five minutes before he was due to play.

With a manic set of electro-re-edits, original tracks and some old fashioned airhorn thrown in, Erol had dance fans of all genres roaring their approval from start to finish.

As he climbed onto the DJ booth, an end of set crowd surf looked like it was in the cards but he quickly realised the drop and crash barriers may have proved fatal!

Other highlights included a live performance from Juan Atkins alias Model 500 who provided live keys and vocals along with a repertoire of classics with some fine new material to boot.

Berlin’sModeselektor finished things off things off in style, playing an extended set in the absence of Jeff Mills who missed his flight.

It’s easy to see why T in the Park continues to attract some of the freshest acts in dance music and why old favourites continue to return to the Slam Tent every year.

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