We walk into the Concorde, bristling with anticipation about what to expect from the new club night being launched, Applesauce. Already impressed by the line-up – Vitalic headlining, supported by Loops of Fury with the front room hosted by Brighton regulars The Electric Playboys – it’s another good sign that people around us are dancing their way into the building. This was due to the talented Electric Playboys whose sound is always fun, bouncy and very, very, bass-heavy. It is still reasonably quiet as we walk into the main room, but the crowds flow in rapidly as the night progresses.
Loops of Fury are an excellent choice of support act. They get the crowd going wild, stomping about to an amalgamation of high-energy rave, electro and techno. The DJs themselves look like they are having so much fun which always makes a set more enjoyable. The crowd seemed particularly pleased when harder techno songs came on which made us suspect that they were hardcore Vitalic fans.
It turns out we were right. When Vitalic takes to the stage the crowd scream and the atmosphere becomes electric. He’s playing a live show to promote the release of his new album ‘Rage Age’. It’s his 5th album and is expected to surprise listeners again by breaking the boundaries of the techno genre once more. As he starts to play, the front rows look ecstatic and becomes almost militant in their dancing. The set takes us on a journey; he starts quite minimal, but then builds up and up and up and the sounds carry the crowd into a euphoric state.
Even with us not being huge techno fans, we are still impressed by Vitalic’s performance. You only need to look at the masses of equipment he brings with him to see that he is a technical genius. We are very impressed with how this launch turned out, the cross-genre evening left us feeling like no matter where we went, we wanted to dance and rave and not stop until the very early hours of the morning. We’re certainly looking forward to the next Applesauce night. On December 14th it returns, with Laurent Garnier headlining.
Concorde2, Friday 2nd November 2012
Words and photos by Esme Yules