Live Review: DJ Shadow

It was 21 years ago that DJ Shadow burst onto the music scene with Endtroducing...; a musical tapestry of plundered funk, found sounds, vocal snippets and other aural ephemera. It sounded like nothing heard before, an album built entirely from other people's music. A true '90s expression of both the coming explosion of music piracy and sample culture, while also a reverent look back to the music producers who came before him.

Since its release, Shadow has released four more records, remixed countless other artists as well as collaborated on projects like UNKLE. His latest record The Mountain Will Fall, which dropped towards the end of 2016, was a different kind of beast. Sampling, while still present, was replaced with live instrumentation.

Early punters gathered around the stage checking out Shadow's simple rig. A CDJ, a Technics 1200 and MPC, a set of digital drum pads and a mixer. From these simple tools, we were to embark on a musical journey that covered an over two-decade-long career.

The set was a frenzied mix of scratching, drumming and digital manipulation built from elements of different songs. The best DJs don't just play songs, they rebuild them on stage, manipulate them and mess with the audience's expectations. The set was incredibly choreographed to hallucination-like visuals. Incredibly, these were all kept in time, which was hard to believe considering how naturalistic the set felt.

This was not a set to dance to, but more experience. The crowd was transfixed swaying in time to the beats, however there were moments that got huge reactions from the crowd. The UNKLE classic Rabbit In Your Headlights got a psychedelic remix with Thom Yorke's vocal drenched in reverb, plus remixes of classic tracks like Midnight In A Perfect World and What Does Your Soul Look Like (Pt 4) had the crowd cheering and Shadow smiling. But it was the lead single Nobody Speak off his latest album that finally got the crowd dancing along.

A quick break and the crowd begged for an encore. And boy were they rewarded. A completely rebuilt version of Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt followed by an extended cut of Organ Donor. With the set finished, the credits rolled to a reprise of The Mountain Will Fall while those who stuck around got to have a meet and greet with the man himself. An incredible set on a wet and windy Tuesday evening.