The first night of Nic Fanciulli’s tour: Chicago

The first night of Nic Fanciulli’s tour: Chicago

8 May, 2009 | 2.34PM

• Written by: Industry Boy
• Filed under: Music News: nic fanciulli, nic fanciulli tour

Nic Fanciulli puffs on a cigarette at 646 N. Franklin Street in Chicago. A train rackets overhead, clanging on rusty steel girders that scream renovate me. A man in a wheelchair with no feet asks for change. The only thing that shines is the moon and a flashing yellow light.

Fanciulli exhales and drops his cigarette, staring at some imaginary point down the street like a captain anticipating stormy weather starboard. It’s the first night of Nic Fanciulli’s Global Underground North American tour and by God, it better go well.

He walks down a alleyway towards a throng of people, past two giant illuminated words. Spybar. Chicago. He checks his iPhone and sees a text message from Derrick Carter, one of Chicago’s greatest house music DJs. ‘Put me on the list’. Fanciulli clearly has friends in high places. Dino Gardiakos is his mate down low. Five years ago, Dino took over the city’s much respected Spybar venue and made it his mission to make Chicago once again proud of its dance music.

Downstairs as KOS warms up the purple-lit dancefloor, Mazi Namvar, a Chicago house music DJ and producer says, “There’s not many people in this scene who run parties just for the love of it. Dino doesn’t care if he makes money or loses money. Just as long as people are dancing, he’s happy.”

It’s midnight, and Spybar is just getting started. Recently remodeled after six months of hard work, its interior is a sparkling example of how to build a nightclub. With exposed brick walls, closeup artwork of eyelashes on the wall, heavy metal curtains, cow print glass walls and HD projections on the floor, it smells sweetly of opulence, elegance and late night chic.

People and shadows start to move around the venue, flowing from shots at the bar to skips on the dancefloor which is small, yet perfectly formed. Served by crisp and warm speakers, KOS drops a giddy minimal house groove.

Nic Fanciulli climbs up the three steps to the tiny DJ booth and signals to KOS that he’s ready to take over. Plugging his headphones in, he takes a deep breath.

He begins strong, with Paul Woolford’s brand new ‘Pandemonium’ track which KOS says is “Woolford’s best tune since Erotic Discourse.” The gathering crowd cheer as a barman shoots a stream of glitter paper into the air. We’re off.

Mazi Namvar shouts “cheers!” and misses clinking his glass with another by about four feet. A photographer flashes in Fanciulli’s face, but he doesn’t notice because he’s too busy playing with his MIDI controller. “Here comes some reverb,” he says, grinning, before twisting a knob up towards the red. The dancefloor responds almost immediately with a torrent of arms and whistles as though it is connected directly to the output of the Pioneer DJM-800 mixer.

Mark Broom’s epic Ricardo Villalobos-supported cut ‘Jackpot’ euphorically flows from the speakers bringing yet more favourable reaction on the ‘floor. It’s 2.30am and the club is rammed. Chicago is representing. Nic is smiling.

Ecstasy...ecstasy

Joey Beltram’s Energy Flash pulses out like a radioactive humming bird. Mazi Namvar says to Nic “What the hell, you were probably five years old when this came out,” but Fanciulli is enjoying himself too much to care.

By 3am the club is locked into the driving high octane techno grooves. Nic drops Dave Robertson’s new Reset Robot cut, which KOS shouts is one of the best tunes of the moment and “will be huge in a couple of months”.

The glitter canon barman returns with a CO2 gun on his shoulder and sprays the crowd with temporary clouds of cool relief. The dancefloor still blazes.

As the clocks move towards the end, Nic plays Joris Voorn’s epic melodic techno remix of Robert Babicz ‘Dark Flower’ and Spybar shows its appreciation. Time for just one more tune.

“Do you think I can play dubstep?” asks Nic, like an artist wondering if he’s allowed to use black on a colourful work of art. “Fuck it,” he says, before gently easing the music down into a slow-burning Skream track. The beats warble, the crowd moves like a pack of tigers on the prowl, and Nic stands back and smiles. The beat kicks in like a drum & bass meteor and Spybar for a moment loses its feet, before stumbling forwards appreciating the change in rhythm.

“What a wicked first night,” says Nic, downing a shot of something black. Job done. Cheers.

Photos courtesy of Christopher Sullivan. You can check out his excellent work here.

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