Things We Learnt: Disclosure (Live)

We saw Disclosure last weekend, here’s some thoughts from said show. Header photo: Tunnel Vision

Support DJ quality is important.

Making sure to arrive nice and early, we were pleasantly eased into proceedings from WA duo Genga & Drifter, throwing down some b2b goodness that didn’t go too hard too soon. Errring on the side of “deep house”, with a bit of garagey gear thrown in, a remix of The Kite String Tangle’s Given The Chance was pleasant earlier, while Terace’s re-work of Drop The Game toughened things up nicely towards the end.

Wave Racer is a great warm-up act, no matter what genre he’s supporting.

The crew we went with weren’t particularly into the kinda music Wave Racer makes (here-on in known as happy trap), in fact the mention of the word ‘trap’ almost instantly caused dry-reaching on their behalf. However, as soon as Wave Racer stepped up to the plate to a rapidly filling venue, all preconceptions were out the window, and maximum bouncing was in place. A short’n’sweet 45 minutes featuring all his big remixes and originals put a smile on everyone’s face, and was the perfect warm-up for a generally house-based act. “Like snorting sherbert”, was a fun descriptor being thrown around.

Wave Racer’s remix of Panama’s Always is still king.

Seriously, best remix of 2013.

You forget what it’s like waiting between acts like at rock gigs.

After Wave Racer finished it was a good 20-30 minute wait for the Disclosure team to set up shop, and it felt like an eternity. No gap DJs just meant house music, and it was a weird feeling after spending so much time at club gigs where DJ after DJ just smashes the decks in a non-stop sonic onslaught. It did allow for some chatter time, and to overhear this pearler from a couple who’d just met:

Girl: “I’ve never tried ketamine before but I’d like to.”

Boy: “I’ve got enough ketamine on me to put a baby rhino to sleep.”

…Which to be honest, probably equates to the size of a horse.

Disclosure’s live set-up is legit.

We couldn’t even tell you what all of the machines/drum pads/keyboards/drum kits in front of Guy and Howard Lawrence were, but we’re happy to report all got a run during their set. Yes there was plenty of backing track, but it was rad to see them putting songs together largely on their own accord. Howard even picked up the old bass guitar to slap a few tunes out, and also sang. At a time when a couple of controllers and a laptop passes for live – it was really refreshing.

Their singles are as strong as ever.

Their debut album is so packed full of killer singles – White Noise, You & Me, Voices, F For You, Help Me Lose My Mind, Latch… The list goes on and all went down a treat. Their “encore” consisted of those last two, and while they were unfortunately not much different-sounding than on the album, it still caused all in attendance to go something something.

Some of the filler got a bit boring.

Unfortunately, because it’s a live set the stop-and-start nature of songs doesn’t quite work when it comes to their more housey filler stuff. Sure it’d flow nicely in a DJ set, but at times it kinda sucked the life out of the room when a five-minute house track drags on a bit too much. They probably coulda scrapped one or two of the tracks and no one would have minded too much.

The “Disclosure face” singing Help Me Lose My Mind…

Is still the best thing ever.

Thanks Boomtick Events for letting us come and dance, and also Tunnel Vision, who took that dope header photo we stole from the event album.