After a solid Pendulum DJ set, and with the venue at capacity, Lorin ‘no bullshit’ Ashton AKA Bassnectar took to the stage. I have no idea how he can see what he’s doing under all that hair, but seriously, this guy means business.
“London you’re a fucking mad house out there!”
And with that – Bassnectar began his relentless sub driven set in KOKO Camden over the weekend. Mixing between mixing dubstep, reggae, drum step, DnB and anything else he could get his hands on – Lorin’s performance that night showed why the guy packs out arenas across the world with the promise of the heaviest sounds on the planet.
You can be sure of two more things at a Bassnectar show; serious amounts of sub bass and whiplash – tonight was no exception. Lorin delivered drop after drop of of his unrelenting dub/step hits and the crowd responded every single time. Stand out moment of the night was undoubtedly Vava Voom, with everyone singing along to Lupe Fiasco’s pitched down vocals (I’m sure we all looked like bloody idiots).
His last appearance in the UK was way back in 2010 and probably consisted of a “classic” dubstep crowd. Eg. mostly guys wearing vests or minimal clothing so their sweat can pass easily from their armpit to your face. The crowd this time was a bit more mixed, but I probably absorbed a good amount of other peoples sweat – a process of osmosis if you like.
I can’t recommend Bassnectar’s live show enough and if you’re in the USA you should definitely make every effort to get to his headlining tour this fall.
One of the other DJ’s that night was one of TMN’s favourites – Zedd who kicked off with his trademark bits and pieces mashups including snippets of everything from Mario to Marley. His biggest drops were, unsurprisingly, some of his own sending the KOKO kids crazy. I’ve never heard Skrillex/The Doors ‘I’m breakin’ a sweat’ sung so loud! What was really impressive was his quick changed of tracks, i swear he must have played close to a 100 different tracks… awesome.
For more Bassnectar treats, get onto his European Vacation mix or even better – buy his latest album Vava Voom which gets a glorious Music Ninja thumbs up.
Special thanks Playground for putting on the event
Photo credit – Bassnectar, Playground Music & Flood Photos
Review via the awesome Steve Williams
