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Hey folks,
One of the most antecipated moments in my musical life finally took place yesterday : seeing Sasha live!
Let?s take it from the top, though.
Sasha?s 1st visit to Portugal was integrated in a big dance music "event" called Groove On. Not exactly a festival, but close to it. It took place in Lisbon on the night from the 25th/26th of May, in a huge warehouse, near Lisbon?s harbour. Around 10.000 people were there, and 1st of all I must say the organization was very good, and the stage and lighting effects were very good too : huge video screens, some smaller screens spread throughout the venue for lighting tricks, lasers, fireworks and alien-looking dancers, huge P.A. and large Dancefloor area...one of the best dance events ever organized here, really.
The line-up consisted of Jiggy (a very good local DJ), Felix da Housecat, DJ Vibe, and closing it all up was Sasha.
So I got there around 3:45, on puprpose, so I could skip Felix?s set and catch Vibe from the beginning. Unfortunately, I ended up having to endure around 45 minutes of Felix, since he started late. As soon as I enter the warehouse, my ears are blasted by a remix of Blur?s "Song2", and I braced myself for what was to come : don?t get me wrong there were some good moments to Felix?s set, but it generally consisted of something I would call "scream?n noise-electro-tech-house". Really man, I like tech-house, I even like some electro, but Felix?s set was filled with nothing but distorted screams, slowed-down gabba beats, noisecore-like synths, but no music whatsoever. If at least there had been some good mixing...instead, Felix decided to follow the industrial nature of the music and mixed the records like if he was using a jackhammer to move the faders...all over the place, Trainwreck Central Station-style.
Fortunately, at 4:30 he fucks off back to the scrapyard from where he surely came from, and gives his place to what turned out to be what this audienece was waiting for all along : DJ Vibe!
His set made me think of some questions, and I?ve been thinking about it since yesterday : why isn?t this guy on everyone?s top 5 DJ list? Why is it that someone like Hernan Cattaneo, who also comes from a peripheral country, get so much recognition, and Vibe doesn?t? It surely has something to do with the fact that he doesn?t leave Portugal too much.
But as soon as he came on with a funky, pure house cut, the mood changed on the dancefloor and everybody was smiling. After 2 songs, he launches into a huge re-edit/mash-up of Dr. Kucho?s "La Ira de Dios", the mixing so perfect, the use of the EFX-500 so sublime, we knew there was no coming back from that point on. What followed was one of the most perfect 2 hours of dance music I?ve ever witnessed. I hadn?t seen Vibe in 2 years and was a bit surprised at first of how hard he was playing. But the unmistakeable funkyness and flow of his style was always there. Dark, percussive stuff, some tribal, some almost tech-house cuts (but not the minimalist stuff), perfect breakdowns, hands in the air, people cheering like at a football match whenever the beat dropped again, and then, as if to challenge Sasha, he shows yet another side of him, by going into a pure, chunky prog-house sequence in the last 40 minutes which drove the crowd even more insane.
This is where Sasha himself comes out to the stage and stands next to the DJ booth for those minutes, clapping and bobbing his head to Vibe?s stuff. In the meantime, his Ableton rig is set-up. Vibe finishes his set with Sasha, hand in the air, "demanding" for people to applaud Vibe (as if it we needed any incentive for that), a roar emerges from the crowd, as Sasha hugs Vibe ecstatically.
One of the best performances I?ve ever seen by a DJ, believe me.
By then, I think even Sasha knew it was almost impossible to follow up on the same level as Vibe. He was right. If that happened, though, the blame lies more on the audience than on Sasha himself though, because Sasha did try.
So Sasha comes on at 6:30, the sun already shining through the large gates of the warehouse, some people leaving tired after Vibe?s set (which was good, more space for me on the dancefloor), he starts with the same intro has last weekend?s EM, but as soon as the beat drops, he brings the funk with a bangin? tech-house cut (sorry, I?m not a trainspotter so I won?t name tracks), but then makes a mistake : the 3rd (or was it 4th?) track is an trance-y song, which he mashes up with a similarly cheesy track, and from the two he creates a long breakdown wich lasts for almost 10 minutes (I shit you not), while he keeps the beat out of it, he messes with delays, loops the, applies reverb...all technically brilliant, but where?s the beats? And why the cheese? What made you think that the Portuguese audience would like that?
As a result, during those 10 minutes, I see several people leaving, while many on the dancefloor almost beg Sasha to bring the beat back. Don?t get me wrong, I love it when a DJ fucks with your head like that, but the problem is that the music at this time was really cheesy, with screeching women voices and all, and this all without any rhythm or even a bass to keep a groove...total Ableton show-off I think : brilliantly done, but musically awful.
Probably realising this, Sasha brings in a dark, chunky prog number, and what?s left of the audience (still around 5.000 people at this time, I would estimate) is then absolutely SLAUGHTERED for another 2 hours.
Boy, how many times did the peeps here at MN cross my mind...whoever says this guy as lost it should?ve been here. I personally loved it, but I think most people did NOT expect the AGRESSIVENESS of these 2 hours.
Sasha was really into it, clapping with his hands up high, jumping on the booth, there was a guy on stage who seemed to belong to his entourage who was dancing like a madman, while Sasha dropped bomb after bomb, a really dirty tech-house sound, with huge basses, crunching snares, booming kicks...I tell you, I have some Sasha sets and there isn?t ONE as hard as this. Sure, it wasn?t very melodic stuff either, so those who were there expecting a GU13 type of set were sorely disappointed.
And this is why my review isn?t totally positive : Sasha didn?t seem to know what the people here wanted from him, and I think most of the people didn?t know what to expect from him either. The Sasha name is relatively well-known around here, but I suspect most of the people at this event didn?t know his work. As such, the reactions were diverse : some people were scared away by how hard he was playing, others thought it was boring, and there was a minority, like me, who jusr got blown away. I would have had a whole lot more fun if the people around me enjoyed it more...
As for the mixing : brilliant. As expected, since he was using Live, not once was he out of time, every beat ligned up perfecty, and he used Live?s several delays and reverb often, along with lightning-fast filter and EQ sweeps and cuts, stutter edits, mashups (that?s why it was so hard to recognize anything), hence the "rollercoater" I was talking in the sub-title.
Conclusion (about time too) : My expectations weren?t totally fulfiled, the fault for that lies mostly on the crowd, so I want to see Sasha playing in a smaller space with a more knowledgeable audience.
As for the people who say he?s lost it : you are SO wrong. He can still do the dark melodic stuff, whenever he wants, he just has to feel like it. But tonight it seems like he was under the influence of some kind of demon, and he played devastatingly hard and aggressive, like I never thought he could. Lisbon saw a rarely seen beast : EVIL SASHA!
A final paragraph, to ChemicalBeavis :
dude, you seem one of the most knowing about Sasha?s career here in MN, I only have a few of his sets and records, I never heard him play this hard anywhere, is it common for him to show this side of his???
One of the most antecipated moments in my musical life finally took place yesterday : seeing Sasha live!
Let?s take it from the top, though.
Sasha?s 1st visit to Portugal was integrated in a big dance music "event" called Groove On. Not exactly a festival, but close to it. It took place in Lisbon on the night from the 25th/26th of May, in a huge warehouse, near Lisbon?s harbour. Around 10.000 people were there, and 1st of all I must say the organization was very good, and the stage and lighting effects were very good too : huge video screens, some smaller screens spread throughout the venue for lighting tricks, lasers, fireworks and alien-looking dancers, huge P.A. and large Dancefloor area...one of the best dance events ever organized here, really.
The line-up consisted of Jiggy (a very good local DJ), Felix da Housecat, DJ Vibe, and closing it all up was Sasha.
So I got there around 3:45, on puprpose, so I could skip Felix?s set and catch Vibe from the beginning. Unfortunately, I ended up having to endure around 45 minutes of Felix, since he started late. As soon as I enter the warehouse, my ears are blasted by a remix of Blur?s "Song2", and I braced myself for what was to come : don?t get me wrong there were some good moments to Felix?s set, but it generally consisted of something I would call "scream?n noise-electro-tech-house". Really man, I like tech-house, I even like some electro, but Felix?s set was filled with nothing but distorted screams, slowed-down gabba beats, noisecore-like synths, but no music whatsoever. If at least there had been some good mixing...instead, Felix decided to follow the industrial nature of the music and mixed the records like if he was using a jackhammer to move the faders...all over the place, Trainwreck Central Station-style.
Fortunately, at 4:30 he fucks off back to the scrapyard from where he surely came from, and gives his place to what turned out to be what this audienece was waiting for all along : DJ Vibe!
His set made me think of some questions, and I?ve been thinking about it since yesterday : why isn?t this guy on everyone?s top 5 DJ list? Why is it that someone like Hernan Cattaneo, who also comes from a peripheral country, get so much recognition, and Vibe doesn?t? It surely has something to do with the fact that he doesn?t leave Portugal too much.
But as soon as he came on with a funky, pure house cut, the mood changed on the dancefloor and everybody was smiling. After 2 songs, he launches into a huge re-edit/mash-up of Dr. Kucho?s "La Ira de Dios", the mixing so perfect, the use of the EFX-500 so sublime, we knew there was no coming back from that point on. What followed was one of the most perfect 2 hours of dance music I?ve ever witnessed. I hadn?t seen Vibe in 2 years and was a bit surprised at first of how hard he was playing. But the unmistakeable funkyness and flow of his style was always there. Dark, percussive stuff, some tribal, some almost tech-house cuts (but not the minimalist stuff), perfect breakdowns, hands in the air, people cheering like at a football match whenever the beat dropped again, and then, as if to challenge Sasha, he shows yet another side of him, by going into a pure, chunky prog-house sequence in the last 40 minutes which drove the crowd even more insane.
This is where Sasha himself comes out to the stage and stands next to the DJ booth for those minutes, clapping and bobbing his head to Vibe?s stuff. In the meantime, his Ableton rig is set-up. Vibe finishes his set with Sasha, hand in the air, "demanding" for people to applaud Vibe (as if it we needed any incentive for that), a roar emerges from the crowd, as Sasha hugs Vibe ecstatically.
One of the best performances I?ve ever seen by a DJ, believe me.
By then, I think even Sasha knew it was almost impossible to follow up on the same level as Vibe. He was right. If that happened, though, the blame lies more on the audience than on Sasha himself though, because Sasha did try.
So Sasha comes on at 6:30, the sun already shining through the large gates of the warehouse, some people leaving tired after Vibe?s set (which was good, more space for me on the dancefloor), he starts with the same intro has last weekend?s EM, but as soon as the beat drops, he brings the funk with a bangin? tech-house cut (sorry, I?m not a trainspotter so I won?t name tracks), but then makes a mistake : the 3rd (or was it 4th?) track is an trance-y song, which he mashes up with a similarly cheesy track, and from the two he creates a long breakdown wich lasts for almost 10 minutes (I shit you not), while he keeps the beat out of it, he messes with delays, loops the, applies reverb...all technically brilliant, but where?s the beats? And why the cheese? What made you think that the Portuguese audience would like that?
As a result, during those 10 minutes, I see several people leaving, while many on the dancefloor almost beg Sasha to bring the beat back. Don?t get me wrong, I love it when a DJ fucks with your head like that, but the problem is that the music at this time was really cheesy, with screeching women voices and all, and this all without any rhythm or even a bass to keep a groove...total Ableton show-off I think : brilliantly done, but musically awful.
Probably realising this, Sasha brings in a dark, chunky prog number, and what?s left of the audience (still around 5.000 people at this time, I would estimate) is then absolutely SLAUGHTERED for another 2 hours.
Boy, how many times did the peeps here at MN cross my mind...whoever says this guy as lost it should?ve been here. I personally loved it, but I think most people did NOT expect the AGRESSIVENESS of these 2 hours.
Sasha was really into it, clapping with his hands up high, jumping on the booth, there was a guy on stage who seemed to belong to his entourage who was dancing like a madman, while Sasha dropped bomb after bomb, a really dirty tech-house sound, with huge basses, crunching snares, booming kicks...I tell you, I have some Sasha sets and there isn?t ONE as hard as this. Sure, it wasn?t very melodic stuff either, so those who were there expecting a GU13 type of set were sorely disappointed.
And this is why my review isn?t totally positive : Sasha didn?t seem to know what the people here wanted from him, and I think most of the people didn?t know what to expect from him either. The Sasha name is relatively well-known around here, but I suspect most of the people at this event didn?t know his work. As such, the reactions were diverse : some people were scared away by how hard he was playing, others thought it was boring, and there was a minority, like me, who jusr got blown away. I would have had a whole lot more fun if the people around me enjoyed it more...
As for the mixing : brilliant. As expected, since he was using Live, not once was he out of time, every beat ligned up perfecty, and he used Live?s several delays and reverb often, along with lightning-fast filter and EQ sweeps and cuts, stutter edits, mashups (that?s why it was so hard to recognize anything), hence the "rollercoater" I was talking in the sub-title.
Conclusion (about time too) : My expectations weren?t totally fulfiled, the fault for that lies mostly on the crowd, so I want to see Sasha playing in a smaller space with a more knowledgeable audience.
As for the people who say he?s lost it : you are SO wrong. He can still do the dark melodic stuff, whenever he wants, he just has to feel like it. But tonight it seems like he was under the influence of some kind of demon, and he played devastatingly hard and aggressive, like I never thought he could. Lisbon saw a rarely seen beast : EVIL SASHA!
A final paragraph, to ChemicalBeavis :
dude, you seem one of the most knowing about Sasha?s career here in MN, I only have a few of his sets and records, I never heard him play this hard anywhere, is it common for him to show this side of his???
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