Hatcha at SMOG Sunday Night Sessions @ Los Globos 12/09 [Concert Review]

Hatcha, one of dubstep’s pioneers responsible for bringing the bass from the club to the airwaves, educated the LA crowd this past Sunday during SMOG’s monthly Sunday Night Sessions at Los Globos in Los Angeles with a selection of tunes that represented the best of yesterday’s and today’s dubstep music. Hogwash and Djunya warmed up the crowd with eclectic selections of bass music that got the crowd’s heads nodding and MC Kemst held it down on the mic for the evening.

Sin City Recordings co-founder and Kiss UK DJ Hatcha headlined the event with a “History of Dubstep” set that, while it wasn’t strictly a straight chronological history lesson – Benji B of BBC Radio 1Xtra did a more formal, mixtape-style history lesson 2 years ago, starting from Horsepower Productions in 2000 to Magnetic Man in 2010 – it was more of a crash course in proper dubstep tunes and vibes.

Hatcha opened up with Mala’s “In Luv,” which was definitely appropriate seeing that Mala was also one of the pioneers in making dubstep what it is today. Hatcha dropped many tracks from the Digital Mystikz – when Hatcha dropped “Anti-War Dub,” everyone raised their lighters, drinks, and/or cell phones after the rewind and got the crowd going wild!

And, of course, what kind of proper dubstep event would it be without the rewinds/wheel ups? Hatcha had an abundance of those throughout the evening, and he got the crowd yelling for a rewind with each huge tune that he dropped (He basically had me screaming for a rewind during Joy Orbison’s “Hyph Mngo”!).

UK garage and 2-step were weaved in and out of Hatcha’s set (i.e. Magnetic Man producer and Hatcha's fellow Big Apple Records co-worker Artwork's “Red” and Horsepower Production’s “Fat Larry’s Skank”), which Kemst mentioned during Djunya’s set as “dubstep’s older sibling that dubstep learned how to be dubstep from.” (I paraphrased the quote from memory, so I apologize if it’s not verbatim, but you get the idea)

I was definitely pleased to hear many of the tunes that I loved from when I first discovered dubstep a few years ago. Dubstep anthems like Benga’s “Night” and “26 Basslines,” and Skream’s “Midnight Request Line,” remix of Digital Mystikz’s “Ancient Memories,” and remix of La Roux’s “In For The Kill” set the crowd off, one anthem after another.

Towards the end, Hatcha started playing more recent tunes, like Mala’s “Eyez VIP” and Distance’s remix of Bastille’s “Overjoyed” (which he mixed out of into his 2008 Chestplate classic “V”). He closed out with a tiny block of jungle tunes, starting off with Shy FX’s “Original Nuttah” as the lights in the club turned on.

I liked that the crowd for the evening wasn't too packed (probably because most students' finals are this week and they're studying hard for them!) because that just meant more room for everyone to skank and get down and less mosh pits that were started because of inadvertent pushing and bumping into others. The sound was excellent as always, with Funkworks providing the Funktion One sound that rattled the club inside and out. And, like I mentioned, the club was dimly lit, with faint blue and red hues to set the tone and the mood of the deep and dark bass music that SMOG has been doing an awesome job with bringing.

While this was the last Sunday Night Sessions of 2012, this hopefully won’t be the last one for SMOG. With that said, massive thanks to SMOG (and especially Drew) for bringing LA the proper dubstep event that it deserves and I’m definitely looking forward to the upcoming events and surprises lined up for this year!