SMOG brought two of the UK’s finest producers to Southern California – Bristol’s Joker and Croydon’s Plastician – for a bass-filled evening at the Observatory in Santa Ana, CA on Saturday, January 12. Newham Generals’ Footsie provided support along with Son of Kick and a back-to-back set from SMOG all-stars Kelly Dean and Pawn.
Joker headlined the event where he started his set drenched in purple lighting – a nod to his 2009 Kapsize single “Purple City” – building off the energy that followed Footsie’s set. And if there were two words to describe his set, it would have to be eclectic and sexy.
For the most part, his set stayed around the 140BPM range, weaving in and out of dubstep and trap tunes. Towards the end, he started moving the tempo up into drum & bass territory, going into “Bright Lights (feat. William Cartwright) (Rockers Mix)” by Die & Interface and Sub Focus’ “Rock It,” and closing out with some hip-hop and R&B jams.
As far as Joker’s set being sexy, just take a listen to most of his tunes off his 4AD album “The Vision”, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Joker ended his set with Usher’s “U Don’t Have to Call” – can’t get any sexier than that.
Plastician closed out the night with an eclectic choice of tunes, starting his set off with 2Pac's “California Love” (On a side note, the crowd loved all the West Coast hip-hop tunes – Joker played Snoop Dogg’s “What’s My Name?” towards the end of his set) and interweaved trap and dubstep throughout his set.
Although the crowd was mostly a younger crowd (the show was 18+), Plastician brought the old school dubstep vibes for the heads in the crowd, selecting a lot of pre-2010 tunes by Digital Mystikz, Skream, Benga, Rusko, and Caspa. Plastician ended his set with a trap remix of DJ Hazard’s banger “Mr. Happy,” which many people in the crowd definitely used up every last bit of energy they had to go crazy to (But seriously, Plastician, play the original next time! I would have loved to hear it and I heard a good amount of people in the crowd asking for the original!).
SMOG’s just been getting better and better with the lineups, bringing in the big names in dubstep as well as the smaller names who are getting the much deserved attention through SMOG’s events, and this one was no exception. On a final note, thank you to Drew from SMOG for the hospitality as always and for bringing Joker (someone I’ve always wanted to see for the longest!) and Plastician to Southern California. And of course, I can’t wait for what SMOG has lined up for the rest of the year!
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