The experiences of walking into the middle of a show and kicking around for ages before it starts are vastly different, and greatly effect your perception of the gig itself. Having waited around in the sparse crowd at the beginning of Ed Rush, I was determined to hit the ground running at Chase & Status, and it turned out to be a good choice. Bouncing into Circa's main room at 11:30, I was swept straight into a heaving mass of sweaty bodies, all blissfully at the mercy of the changing styles of the London duo.
Through dubstep, drum & bass and the odd bit of house, I move and throw shapes within the shared consciousness that's being thrust upon us, until a knife of silence cuts through the thick mass of sound and stops everyone in their tracks. It's almost worth standing there cracking lame jokes with other crowd members into the silence for that endless minute of technical failure, just to hear the thundering bass kick back in even harder than before, reminding you exactly what you're there for. Tunes like the crazy "Smash TV" and "Take Me Away" bewildered me with how good they sounded on Circa's system, and had me looking up to the metaphorical sky and singing away like I was watching a band rather than a couple of producers.
Then again, Chase & Status are strange like that, and their samples so diverse, they defy all logic; a sound bite from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels found its way into some dubstep, while the caressing vocal of "Pieces" calmed the throng, creating a "lighters aloft" sing-along. Yet the unexpected lightning bolt of brilliance was a remix of Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name Of," which sent me spiralling into a blitz of thrash dancing and sent the UK boys out on the highest of high notes.
Through dubstep, drum & bass and the odd bit of house, I move and throw shapes within the shared consciousness that's being thrust upon us, until a knife of silence cuts through the thick mass of sound and stops everyone in their tracks. It's almost worth standing there cracking lame jokes with other crowd members into the silence for that endless minute of technical failure, just to hear the thundering bass kick back in even harder than before, reminding you exactly what you're there for. Tunes like the crazy "Smash TV" and "Take Me Away" bewildered me with how good they sounded on Circa's system, and had me looking up to the metaphorical sky and singing away like I was watching a band rather than a couple of producers.
Then again, Chase & Status are strange like that, and their samples so diverse, they defy all logic; a sound bite from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels found its way into some dubstep, while the caressing vocal of "Pieces" calmed the throng, creating a "lighters aloft" sing-along. Yet the unexpected lightning bolt of brilliance was a remix of Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name Of," which sent me spiralling into a blitz of thrash dancing and sent the UK boys out on the highest of high notes.
