MOVE Fridays Recap

April 29, 2012

First things first - I had no idea Redondo Beach was so close to LB. We had anticipated a lot more travel time (and were freaking out having left an hour late), but in no time at all, we were there and able to set up, do a sound check and kick it with Candyland for a bit.

Then, as usual, we played the waiting game. Anyone who has promoted in the past knows exactly what I’m talking about when I say that whenever you’re throwing an event, there is a panicking point when people don’t show up by a certain time. Despite the fact that The Tugboat wasn’t throwing the event, at 10:30, as Dilbund was starting his set, the feeling set in. There was literally no one there. However, Sam, of Plastic Entertainment, was pretty confident it was just going to be a later crowd and sure enough, within 15 minutes, hordes of people began packing this place. By 11, the place was crawling with people and I had to start guarding the bottle of Absolut.

Dilbund’s set was so clean… it was delicious. Perfect opening music. He started out slow and built up the vibe with some Bowski, some Cajmere, and a personal favorite, Tensnake’s “Around The House (DJ T.’s 2011 Edit).”

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Towards the end of the set, he started to pump up the crowd with some solid electro, eventually concluding with Pleasurecraft’s remix of Umek’s “Heroes of the Night.” I somehow forgot how amazing that song was, but have listened to it about 30 times in the car since.

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Enter Dirty Data

Fuck these guys can pull a crowd. A huge amount of people came out to see them play. In case you don’t know, Dirty Data is an L.A. based DJ Duo consisting of Zachary Pevnick and Hunter Thompson. To say the least, they are building a decent following. What makes them so much fun to watch live is that their sets are extremely dynamic. Zach brings a lot of melodic, rhythmic influence, while Hunter brings the heaviness that we all love. It meshes together really well, provides balance and definitely keeps things interesting. By this time, the free bottle service had started to go to my head (I’m praying no embarrassing photos surface of me dancing my face off), but if I remember correctly, they dropped multitude of bangers – my favorite being a heavy remix of Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.” The best (and worst) part of their set was that they dropped some really heavy tracks towards the end that I haven’t even heard yet. Will I be able to go on living without having those tracks in my iTunes collection? Only time will tell, but the outlook is grim…

The Main Event

I thought things got heavy with Dirty Data. I was wrong. We were just getting started. To the fans’ surprise, Candyland played their live set, which has only been done a few times. Things began just as normally as any other DJ set you’ve seen. The duo started with a really clever mashup of Feed Me, Knife Party and Chuckie and then progressed into some more classic bangers. However, about halfway through the set, Ethan left his post behind the mixer and hopped on the drum set. I’ve heard Pretty Lights has done this at some of his shows, and last time I saw Booka Shade, they did something similar (but with electronic drums). However, I’ve never seen anything quite this raw. While Josie mixed in some heavy tracks, Ethan slammed away on the drums. It added a whole new dimension to the music and the audience went crazy. Even if you’re not into really heavy music, you gotta respect these things for standing out from the crowd.

The high point of their performance, though, hands down, had to be when they dropped their signature remix of Bingo Player’s “Rattle.” In case you haven’t heard, this track recently won Beatport’s Remix contest. It’s amazing. Nothing against Bingo Players, but I like this one way more than the original.

Thoughts

Plastic Entertainment and rollingTUFF are emerging as serious players in the scene. This event went really smoothly. It had an awesome crowd, a great vibe, and all the flash of a good electronic event. At the same time, it was real, it was raw and it made me remember why I started liking electro in the first place. If you weren’t able to make it out to this one, make sure to like their Facebook pages to find out what they’re throwing next. These parties aren’t worth missing.

Also, much thanks to Alex Calish of J. Alexander Photography for providing these awesome photos.

About the author

Joey

I'm an overachiever. Just kidding.