Motor City Drum Ensemble, Danilo Plessow, AYS dj set, Beraber, CC:Disco!, Erol Alkan, Dee Diggs, Shmlss, Running Hot, Shy One, Ruby Savage, Pete Blaker, Elias Mazian presents Private Hearts Club, Gerd Janson, Lysah, Make A Dance, Nedda Sou, and Paula Tape

Despite the name of the act, Motor City Drum Ensemble is in fact a solo house music pioneer, Danilo Plessow. It’s evident from his performance that he’s been playing music for many years, and his work on the electronic drum machine was done with such ease, that immediately I knew it was going to be a fantastic show full of talent. His fusion of house, soul, funk, and jazz made for a relatively chilled out, yet high energy show. There was no moshing, or shoving, but everyone was dancing and having a great time, it was the perfect fusion of genres for the atmosphere.
He opened the show with an original track where he played both pre-recorded and live elements, using his synth and drum machine to build on the work he’d previously recorded, creating some great layers of music. He then went on to play through his EP Send A Prayer, which had everyone dancing along from the start. Although I wasn’t too familiar with the tracks, it was catchy and I went away and bough it straight after.
As well as being a talented musician, he’s a great performer and had his arms in the air, encouraging everyone to dance along, and he also had a microphone that he was calling out to the audience from. It was great to see that he was really concentrated on making sure that the audience were having a good time, a true sign of a crowd pleaser.

DJs, I find, get away lightly with their live performances, as a lot of their work is pre-prepared and pre-recorded, so I was extremely excited to see Erol Alkan when I heard that he predominantly plays his music live, using sample pads, his laptop, kaoss pads, and synths. From the moment he walked out on stage, it was evident that he had years of experience behind a DJ desk, as he looked totally at home as he played a funky riff on his synth and inserted a sample to get his first track going. It was incredible that he managed to hold an audience with a track that we’d never heard for his first song, in fact, it was an improvisation on the spot we later found out, and if had everyone dancing and cheering, and he even replayed the hook several times as everyone was enjoying it so much.

After Erol launched the club Trash, he made a huge name for himself as a DJ, as it’s now one of the most influential clubs around, and he managed to get huge names to Dj and perform there. He was great at getting the audience involved in his show, and when he wasn’t busy mixing and creating music, he was dancing along and shouting out for us to do the same. He played his incredible Daft Punk remix, and held out a microphone to symbolise that everyone should join in, which of course we did. The atmosphere was incredible from start to finish, and his talent blew me away.