So this Friday Sasha & Guy J rocked up into town for Shindig's 18th birthday. Shindig is a house music night that has seen (to my count) five different venues in Newcastle, as it has shifted about owing to different circumstances. It used to be a weekly affair up until last summer, when dwindling attendances as well as the owners' weariness meant that it was no longer really viable to have it so often. As a result, the night left the then main venue, Digital, but continued to have one-off events every month or so, at alternative clubs, meaning it lived on. And so it returned to the Funktion One-endowed Digital two days ago.
Having arrived about 11ish, I caught some of the ever-reliable resident, Scott Bradford of Lexicon Avenue, before Guy J took over. Now, I've been impressed with a lot of his production work these past few years, so expected to enjoy his set - and I did. Some lush, mellow proggy numbers, mixed up with some more tech-y tunes. Doubtless some of them will turn out to be Guy J's work; the only ID I can recall is Robert Babicz's Remote Kiss.
But let's make no mistake about it: this night was very much about Sasha. Ordinarily, chances are a club night with Sasha on the bill would be orientated around him anyway, but especially this time. Sasha was last in Newcastle in December 2006, in Digital, when somebody threw a glass at him during his set, prompting him, quite understandably, to stop playing and leave. Thus nigh-on four years have surpassed since "The Man Like" was last here - and you could sense the anticipation within the up-for-it crowd as Sasha appeared at the decks, about to take over from Guy J.
Sasha's opening tune at 0115 was typically spacey (I did expect it to be Yousef's Come Home, but it was nothing like it), and heralded in a 2-and-three-quarter hour journey. This was my first time seeing Sasha without Digweed, and it was excellent - you could tell he was really "on his game". He started deep, and shifted through the gears, crafting some fine moments, rocking that soundsystem using those Pioneer CDJ2000s. Some IDs:
Juspio - Frozen Light (Chris Fortier 40oz Remix), the tune that Diggers used ever-so-effectively as a bridge in his EM; King Unique - 2000000 Suns (sounded huge!); Cirez D - Glow in the dark (dub), again, brilliant on that system, followed by a remix of it; Carl Craig - At Les (one of Christian Smith's remixes)
The best moment came in the last hour: his use of Nic Fanciulli's remix of Saints and Sinners and the marvellous I Feel Love, which I managed to capture (excuse the far-from-ideal audio): [video=youtube;sEvtDiv4f9A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEvtDiv4f9A[/video] Quite the moment!
He finished with the Chemical Brothers' Escape Velocity, adding to their catalogue of brilliant closing tunes, and then an unknown d'n'b/breaks tune which began with the sample the Chems have also used, "It began in Afrika..."
A brilliant night, certainly. Here are all the videos I took, some of which the audio is admittedly quite poor: [video=youtube;OfJkQHdzyrU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfJkQHdzyrU&feature=PlayList&p=377E6C0EDEDA4C17&playnext_from=PL&index=1&playnext=1[/video] Mark :)