Live Review: Dcup, Yolanda Be Cool

Zhivago pulled out some of the stops to get the venue Halloween-hallowed: the ceiling and walls were bedecked with spider webs, pirate skeletons and all manner of para-normal-phernalia. The bar staff were similarly festively festooned and the scene was set for the year’s biggest dress-up party.

As the party people swelled in, some magnificent costumes amongst the crowd kept the mood mirth-ridden. Special mentions are necessary for Raiden (a la Mortal Kombat) and the gang of zombie council workers, presumably on braino (like smoko… No? Never mind). Dress-ups tend to get folks in the mood to get down and take photos of themselves with randoms and damn it all if Dcup and Yolanda Be Cool weren’t on hand to make the right noises to ensure maximum party times.

You can’t fault a project name that’s such a clear instruction (seriously, Yolanda, just calm down) nor can you too harshly judge a DJ set that starts with the Zulu chanting from Circle Of Life. Okay, maybe it’s a bit candy-corny, but it means “here comes a lion…’ and is so full of elation that when dropped into some housey tunes that had succumbed to some jungle-heavy beats, the d-floor got off to a crowded start.

The ever-collaborating trio shared deck duty and spun out a respectable and diverse set, resisting the temptation to get mired in the evening’s theme-trap (unlike this write-up). It was an energetic quick step through some more poppy house that got deep and dirty pretty fast: Zhu’s Faded typifying that phase. The wub came out, got thrown around the dance floor for Must Die! Ft. Tkay Maidza’s Imprint (that track is a monster) and scurried back behind the decks.

A brief trance tour had the party reaching for lasers through Duke Dumont’s Won’t Look Back and a tranced-down mix of Van She’s Idea Of Happiness. Perhaps disappointingly, it was a fair way into the set that YBC’s emblematic big band-style samples made an appearance but when they arrived, with the current Dcup collab track, Sugarman, the crowd appreciated the jazzy lift in energy, just in time for Tom Loud and associates to swoop in with the Hot Dub Time Machine after-party set.

It’s a fine line to tread for DJs; getting billed to play their mixed tapes is a little fraught and the risk that fans of their produced work will be alienated is legit. Dcup and YBC’s Zhivago Halloween set probably would have benefited from some more of their identifiable tracks and little more attention to what was passing the crowds’ “rigorous tests”, but they still offered a generous set of danceables for a party-fit crowd.