There was a lot to love and a lot to dislike about The Aston Shuffle's gig at the Zoo on Friday night. The good things came from The Aston Shuffle themselves, however the long wait before the boys hit the stage was much less enjoyable.
Up first with live remixes and mash ups was Jordan Burns vs Jordan James, who set the right mood buy unfortunately played to an empty room - there's only so much a DJ can do without an audience. Next up was CLN. He had a really interesting thing going on. His music was super groovy and was really great to sit and listen to.
To play to a dead room is a musicians worst nightmare. Even more so for an electronic artist, but CLN handled it quite well. What made CLN’s set a little tedious, however, was the tempo of his electronica music. He kept it really mellow and while it was complexly and densely layered, it lost its impact after the third or fourth song. His remixes towards the end, however, were clever and nicely done and ended things on a strong note.
Just a Gent played next and opened his set with a remix of the theme from the Phantom of the Opera. I think that this sums up this electronica artist wholly. In his top hat and three piece suit, with tails, he was the first act of the night to actually get people to the front of the room and up and dancing. His range of repertoire was diverse and kept everyone guessing. One minute he was playing recent tunes the next he was back to obscure 90's pop. To tell you the true though, I was totally ok with that and it worked cohesively.
While the support acts weren't all that bad, the major problem was that they played for up to an hour each. With three acts it makes for a very... very long wait to see the headline act, who played only as long as any one of their support acts. Now, I know The Aston Shuffle are an electronic band and I love them to pieces for this, and I know they cater to that type of crowd and that type of timeslot, but that sort of build up was bit much.
What made the night oh so worthwhile was the genius that is The Aston Shuffle. Their sophisticated electronic music uses so much ingenuity that they are able to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack. Throughout the set, they welcomed two vocalists to the stage to perform the vocals from their latest release Photographs. It was such a nice touch to their live show that gives their brilliant record the strong outing it deserves.
Postcards tracks littered the set, with “Back and Forth”, “Never Take it Away” and “Ordinary Love” being particular highlights. But it was when they got to the end of the set when things got really special. During “Tear it Down”, their guest female vocalist, appeared on stage mid-song in a Mirror Ball suit. The strobe lighting focused on her in center stage as she subtly moved her body to reflect the light throughout the entire venue. It was truly stunning!
Although the night was disappointingly long, The Aston Shuffle have really stepped up their live shows, making them one of the most exciting live electronic acts around. Kudos lads.
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