Sonar in London

25 Chalk Farm Rd, London, NW1 8AG

As I wrote once in this blog before, one of the issues I had no clue before coming to London is electronic music. Extending my trainee period in this matter a bit more, last lesson was a little piece of taste of what is according to quite a lot of people one of the best electronic music festivals in the world: Sonar in Barcelona. Before that big event some of the bands/DJs performing there did an appetizer show in London, in the Roundhouse, Camden.

The roundhouse is a former engine shed reopened three years ago as an arts hub. This is a New Labour project –even while the theatre existed quite a lot of years before - owned by the local council and this means that you will not be ripped off for gigs that otherwise might be terribly expensive, as it could be the case of the gig I’m writing about now. A fairly big space for about 3,000 people, the building is a little piece of art with all its columns, its iron work and its vibe. In three words: A Fantastaic Venue.

That specific day, I have to say that decoration was very good, with quite a lot of psychedelic stuff, lights and all the business as usual Ibiza paraphernalia. The only flaw I could spot was that the music came from the stage only, as they didn’t set any speakers in the back side of the venue. That wasn’t a real problem, and can be even considered a positive point as the place wasn’t too packed: you could go to the stage border line if you wanted to, or you could step back in order to have a chat with someone while enjoying a drink.

Talking about drinks, 3.50 for a pint of Becks is a fair price given the bands playing and the quality of the venue. No complains about that, at least from my side.

The first guy to perform was Angel Molina, a DJ from Barcelona fairly famous for experimenting with different sounds and trends. He developed a fairly progressive session, starting very chilled out and ending a bit more energetic. The problem of his show was pretty obvious, though: it started at 20:00, so no more than 20 people were attending from the very beginning – I was one of them – and no more than 100 at the end. Obviously, you can do whatever it is in your hands, but in such an empty place it is very difficult to generate the party mood that this type of music requires. So I’ll spare this one as his failure, as it really was the audience’s – or lack of- one.



Second one was Jeff Mills – more about here in this post-, and obviously, that is a completely different story. The place got completely packed for his session, and he didn’t deceive at all. He started the session with fairly innovative sounds and images on the big screen – yes, there was a massive screen – that lasted about 15-20 minutes, and after that he just played what he knows how to do better: pure Detroit techno. You could see the faces of everybody on the front line enjoying the experience really a lot, and it was real and healthy enjoyment at that point, as it was still 22.00 and not enough time to get hammered had passed yet. The vibe was incredible at that point. Obviously the classic queues in the toilets you get in these gigs were present, but I don’t think people were more fucked up that in any club any weekend.

Anyway, Mr. Mills session ended with a flash experience – we were literally flashed from two big flashes that appeared in two gaps in the middle of the screen – and everybody dancing and enjoying good techno. My lack of expertise in the matter does not allow me to give a more precise description of the music, but that is not what this post is about, you can always go to somewhere else if you want to check that.



After Mills it was time for Plaid DJ. A guy that comes up to the stage just with a Mac is not very promising- how are you mixing music then: pushing ctrl+F2? Fuck off!!!. Anyway, sort of cheese drum and bass that I didn’t particularly liked at all. A good chance to have some drinks and chat up a bit, though.

After that, my personal discovery of the night: Moderat. Those German guys know what their racket is, and they know it well. They covered the stage with DJ sets, screens, visual effects and all sort of junk you may imagine, but, at the end of the day, their music was just great. The three guys altogether mixing sounds at the same time, they generated an experience that at some point remembered me Holy Fuck, but in a harder way – stronger beats and more revolutions.



Everybody went crazy at some point of the gig, and the guys were really friendly with the crowd, more like rock stars than the classic cliché about a DJ with his earphones and ‘this is my business’ pose. Greatly enjoyable, those guys, and a personal recommendation if for some reason they come around to your town.

Finally, Erol Alkan, a fellow Londoner DJ that became famous in The End playing electro, did a good electro session. At that point everybody was quite drunk – the Moderat experience pushed us to do it -, so my opinions about it may not be very precise. I enjoyed it, that’s all I can say.


And finally, at 3.00, curfew. A great band they were… :). This is just a joke between Vlad and myself, as I asked what curfew played, and, well, if you check in your dictionary what curfew means as I did, you’ll get the meaning to the joke – and by the way, you’ll feel as depressed as I did about how many fucking different words are in this in the other hand lovely language.