After seeing Youngsta last week I was HYPE for seeing Mala in Sheffield. He’s my second favourite DJ in the world (after Shaka). Sadly I was never likely to get there – I tried to schedule this week’s trip to New York so I could get there but I was going to fly the next morning, so it was going to be a struggle – and then I went down with chicken pox and was quarantined at home. (In fact I should really have been in bed constantly, but until today I’ve been struggling to function normally – big mistake.)
Normally this would mean no chance of a review, but due to the immense power of the dubstep community, I can put together a decent report – and even pictures.
The Tuesday Club put Mala on in the Foundry back room with C90 crew on before and Junglist Alliance on after. This was a student venue, a school night, and it’s exam time, but even so, 500 dubsteppers were crammed in there. Trust me, that’s a result. As I noted in my Youngsta review, Juliun C90 reckons that Sheffield is now “well and truly in the grip of the dubstep virus”.
The difference in the crowd in terms of numbers present and knowledge of the music from when I warmed up for the warrior dubs tour a while back to last night was phenomenal.” This is not such a long time – Halloween last year, when Loefah and Plastician played (and I was also sick. Bloody kids). And Godspeed 120 remembers Juliun doing a dubstep set at a Tuesday Club residents night this time last year, when there were about twenty people on the dance floor – things have changed.
As ever at dubstep events there was a great vibe in the dance, but it sounds like (and looks like) people were really going for it on the dancefloor. C90 crew rocked it with impeccable mixing.
But it sounds like Mala was, as ever, on another plane entirely.
It’s amazing that the two poles of dubstep DJing were representing in Sheffield one after another – the coldness of Yunx, the sweet heat of Mala.
His sound seems to have benefited from the intimate venue, especially with the extra weight brought in for the occasion. Apparently he was pure fire last night – dark, dubby, massive. Jah War, Miracles, Lean Forward and loads of new fairly fresh stuff all dropped.
Looks like people were worshipping the bass…
… getting munted…
… and getting happy…
… and giving some serious “defiant stare”…
Many thanks to the people at dubstep forum for the reports, especially to ikarai for taking such great photos.