HARD presents: Joy Orbison, Pearson Sound/Ramadanman [Concert Review]

HARD presents: Joy Orbison | Pearson Sound/Ramadanman | Annie Mac | Flinch @ The Roxy

Early on sometime mid afternoon I receive a text message saying "You won! :)". Confused as to what I won and who this was from I responded with "What did I win?! And who is this?!" It turns out I won tickets for myself and four of my friends courtesy of The Drop Factory to that night's event at The Roxy presented by Hard. Joy Orbison was playing that night and Hyph Mngo was a constant in my rotation along with his remix of Four Tet's Love Cry. So I did what any other person recovering from Post-Coachella sickness would do, I rounded up some fun musically hungry people and headed up to Hollywood.

As we approached the Will Call and Guestlist area my name was no where to be found and no tickets were left for me as instructed. A bit confused I made them triple check my ID to both lists and still no luck. After 20+ calls straight to a voicemail and a handful of text messages we were out of luck. fabricated, [e]ccentric, D$, Ms. Alaijsha, and I made the drive all the way out there and we weren't going home empty handed. So again I did what anyone Post-Coachella, still hungry for more music, with a week off from work, who extremely detests my cubicle day job but is putting up with it because it's a source of income would do, buy 5 tickets for him and 4 of his friends[Total was $150 if you were wondering]. From here on out fabricated will take over the review as I was a bit infuriated at the situation and medicated the situation with a bit too much whiskey and thus was unable to take proper notes that night...



Walking towards the Roxy and being able to hear the sub bass clearly from across the street, I already knew I was going to enjoy what I was about to hear. The moment after walking through the doors of the Roxy, I see Ramadanman aka Pearson Sound, UK dubstep producer and founder of Hessle Audio, which has put out releases from huge underground dubstep producers Untold, Martyn, Peverelist, and James Blake. The first track I heard was one that I was already familiar with, his remix of Rod Lee’s classic “Let Me See What U Workin’ With”, released on Night Slugs. Later into his set, I also heard the B-side of that release, his remix of Harddrive’s “Deep Inside”, both of these tracks under the Pearson Sound moniker. He basically dropped a whole lot of bass heavy tracks that got the subs booming and everyone in the club dancing and cheering him on each track he played.

Towards the end of Ramadanman’s set, Joy Orbison, another UK dubstep and house producer, came out and everyone in the crowd started screaming and getting all sorts of excited in anticipation for Joy Orbison. Ramadanman closed out his set with a very mellowed out track while Joy Orbison started setting up and preparing for his set. Once Joy Orbison took the stage, he started out with a lot of hard hitting house tracks, slowly building up to dubstep, particularly dropping his well-known (and one of my personal favorite dubstep tracks), “Hyph Mngo”.

Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo [HFT009] by Hotflush

About an hour into Joy Orbison’s set, he and Ramadanman began trading off on mixing duties, which was pretty interesting because they were playing a combination of everything from house to dubstep to even some old school hardcore rave tracks. The energy just kept rising from there and the bass just kept getting louder and louder. Ramadanman closed out the set with Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now”, which definitely got everyone in the club dancing.

There is the saying, “All good things must come to an end”, and this was no exception. After playing more or less about 15 minutes past the posted end time, the admins of the club came on stage and made them close out, which was met with a crowd booing because it had to end but cheering for Ramadanman and Joy Orbison at the same time.


This event definitely had a different vibe than most of the previous HARD events I’ve attended in the past. I was very pleased that Gary Richards decided to switch things up and explore a more different sound in lieu of the usual mainstream electronic music headliners that HARD has been known for drawing in the past. In general, this event was very enjoyable, bringing in more of the club crowd and less of the rave crowd with excellent music from excellent DJ’s overseas. I’m definitely hoping for more of these kinds of events to come in the future.

Nativity + fabricated