Sometimes all the elements just fall into place with a gig and last night was one of those times. The perfect balance of great weather, people and food in a stunning location – Bastille, on top of the mountain in Grenoble, France. The quickest way to the top was by cable car and the five bubble cars that descended from the sky were like something out of a 60’s World Expo fair. Once on top of the mountain, our stage was perched on the edge of a courtyard with a stunning view of the city and surrounding countryside below, including Europe’s longest street which you can see carved into the landscape in a couple of shots here.

The gig was to be three hours long between DK and myself but we loved it so much we decided to play the warm up hour whilst people arrived by cable car as well. By midnight the place was packed with more people than expected but at 1.30am the promoters got a call from the city mayor. The music was too loud and the bass could be heard across the city so the sound had to be turned down, much to the annoyance of the crowd. 40 minutes later we ramped things up with some drum n bass and people started surging forward and pushing over barriers, a fight broke out after much moshing and we had to stop the music a couple of times. We decided to curtail the harshness of the music after requests from the promoters as there wasn’t enough security and it all ended well at 3am. It’s unlikely there will be another gig up there again after this and there was talk of us being banned from playing again :). Gig of the year so far for both of us though, thanks to everyone who came and made it so great and thanks to Alban, the promoter who put us up for it.

I played in Glasgow last night as the special guest at Boom Monk Ben‘s last ever Mixed Bizness night at the School of Art. After my 90 minute AV set Ben played the final hour and the crowd went progressively crazier until he ended with Beck’s ‘Mixed Bizness’ (what else?) and a full on stage invasion. Predictably ‘one more song’ was requested to which he responded with Chaka Khan’s ‘Ain’t Nobody’ at which point there was full on crowd surfing! Another stage invasion occurred and demands for one more ‘one more song’ were granted by Roots Manuva’s ‘Witness’ and the place erupted. I think Ben feared the whole table and laptop were going to be pushed over at one point from the amount of people on the front of the stage and behind the decks.

It was a great end to years of regular nights Ben has been doing at the Art School, which is due for renovation and will be closed for at least 2 years while they rip everything out. The week before, I did a phone interview with Shaun Murphy for Mixed Bizness about the forthcoming show and my forthcoming album, which you can listen to here

I stayed in the lovely Citizen M hotel when I was there which is full of great designer furniture by the likes of Panton and Eames with compact rooms that resembled Japanese pod hotels.