Jack Beats at XOYO

Thursday evening saw super-trendy XOYO play host to a night of intense dance and beats. With the likes of Dismantle, Mele and Doorly gracing the stage along, with super duo Jack Beats’ live set, the night was always going to be explosive.

The dance scene seems to all sound the same at the moment – a synthesizer here, a wobble there and a drop – it is easy to assume that there is no longer any originality and people tend to forfeit from listening. However, with the likes of Jack Beats around, that would be a serious mistake. The duo Niall Dailly and Ben Geffin are far from your average sample-chucking mainstream dance. Jack Beats perfectly merge genres and eclectic mixes of music together to craft something completely new and exciting. Yes they wobble and yes they drop but when they do, they do it with such force and enthusiasm that they bring an altogether new experience to the genre of dance.

Promoting their new mini-album Careless, which consists of six full tracks and three instrumentals, the duo exploded on to stage and didn’t let up from start to finish. They sent the crowd – who were already pretty hyped up – into overdrive. The crowd gave it everything, as did Jack Beats, it was almost a battle as to who could give more energy into the set, which was a great thing to experience. As usual with a lot of live sets, there was an MC: Takurah, who features on the duo’s album title track Careless and he did a great job of keeping the audience involved and amped. There is always the problem that when you have an MC, some of the musicality of the performance is interrupted by their personal performance and this was definitely the case. Slightly repetitive and grating towards the end of the set, the MC became a distraction. He was most definitely upstaged by Jack Beats; and rightly so.

XOYO is a fantastic venue for live music; it opens late and allows the party to keep going to the early hours of the morning. The stage is perfectly positioned for maximum viewing so nobody has to miss out on any of the magic of the performance, and, being on the smaller side for its type of venue made the atmosphere was less diluted. The biggest problem with XOYO is that its reputation as ‘trendy’ has given it a somewhat massive ego; the drink prices are extortionate and away from the dancefloor the atmosphere is lost and feels empty. Don’t let that put you off though – there is always a price to be paid and the venue makes up for it with fantastic gigs and stage performances.

Ruth Page

For further information and future events visit Jack Beats’s website here.

Watch the music video for Careless here: