Above and Beyond live in London
- By Adam Holden -
- Apr 11, 2012
Above and Beyond kicked off their UK tour in Brixton this Easter bank holiday weekend with a bang. Playing in front of a packed out 5000 strong crowd, the trio arrived on stage just past midnight at about 12:30 to deliver a empathetic-highly-synthesized-two and half hour set, which is colossal when compared to many other genres of music.
With their own record label AnjunaBeats, the guys have a luxury of cherry picking their best disc jockeys to open and close their gigs. Australian Jaytech has been their choice of support for a long time now and was no surprise he was blending and convoluting his own emotional trance to warm the packed out arena before Tony, Paavo and Jono were announced on stage to such huge ovation.
And it truly was too. Everything about them now seems to be big, but not like Swedish House Mafia big, but loud emotive synths that make you wanna stand to attention and hold your hands in the air to appreciate the beauty that has just been cooked up. If Godskitchen is said to cook up the best music, well AnjunaBeats is stirring up its own pot of soft-emotive trance.
When the trio stepped on stage to their huge ovation, they wasted no time in dropping big tunes, flowing through hits from their number one selling dance album of the year ‘Group Therapy’.
With such amalgamation between trance and love, there is no surprise with the amount love being expressed through the many thousands that turn up for the occasion. Yes, much of it may be serotonin influenced, but the love and affection felt by everyone there is hard to match at any other type of music. You would never think complete strangers could show such empathy towards one another, and if you have doubt reading this, it is understandable, however, if you doubt that much, go along and see it for yourself. It is something quite remarkable.
After mixing through tunes off their album, ‘A Thing Called Love’ brought everyone to attention, with all packed 5000 members of crowd singing their hearts to the chorus. However, the greatest most hand rising moment of the evening went to the track called ‘On a good day’. Talk about making your body horripilate, an incredible feeling. It is one of those special moments that bring the group you have gone with together, or make you whip out your phone to text a loved one and wish they were there with you.
Although, if there were any complaints through the evening, it would be two fold. Firstly, despite all the superlatives that have been sung and praised over the emotive trance Above and Beyond produce, you get the feeling they may be losing their way in keeping the trance hard and dance motivated. Yes the love and emotion is incredible, but most ravers still love the feeling of when the beat drops and going for it, something Above and Beyond seem to be moving away from.
Secondly, after last year’s impressive light and visual shows at Global Gathering and Creamfields, the set at Brixton really lacked any creativity or innovation. Something that goes in tandem with this genre of music that just simply wasn’t there.
Either way, Above and Beyond are still strides ahead of most in their industry and look set to continue their AnjunaBeats music across the country, with a few festival performances being thrown in the mix.
For those who have yet to experience the trio live, it has to be on your bucket list of artists to see, and for those of you have seen them live, you will probably understand the concept of my discourse throughout this review and why they sold out Brixton Academy in record time.
Image by The World Is Mine on Flickr
By Adam Holden.
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