Breakbot @ Arthouse

What a shame. A potentially awesome gig, featuring Ed Rec’s newest recruit, ruined by technical fuck-ups and a venue that can’t be considered suitable for music.

I’m definitely not a regular at Arthouse, but this wasn’t the first time that the self-proclaimed ‘super club’ has let me down in terms of its sound quality. The main room feels more like a primary school hall than a dance floor. The music relentlessly echoes and reverberates around you, the final result being an almost overpowering urge to leave.

Yet, you linger. The prospect of seeing a musician of the calibre of Breakbot is enough to keep you waiting around in this god-forsaken place until 2am.

But bad goes to worse when, around 1.30am, the sound in the main room takes a nose-dive in volume. At first it feels like a weight lifted off your shoulders because the echoing mostly goes away. Then you realise that you can comfortably talk to the person next to you without even really raising your voice – never a good sign in a nightclub.

None of the Arthouse sound-techs seemed to think this lack of volume was a problem so when Breakbot
took to the stage he was already fighting a losing battle.

In the face of adversity the French ace presented us with some awesomely funky tunes that certainly got people bobbing their heads and moving about. His remix of Extraball by his fellow countryman Yuksek was a highlight.

Before long though, things went from worse to disastrous when the music clattered to a distorted halt. Now the sound-techs decided it was time to take action, but not before the headline act stormed off stage in a huff.

There was a move amongst some of the crowd towards the backroom, which seemed the obvious solution to the problem. But it didn’t take long for word to get around that Breakbot had left the building for good, and within 20 minutes three quarters of the frustrated punters had exited.

They should have stuck around however, because they finally got everything working again and the moody Frenchman was coaxed back on stage to play, albeit to a dismally empty room.

His set continued and skilfully worked it’s way to a final flurry of dirty electro and big beats, but there was a real half-hearted atmosphere about the place.

Despite the shambles, props to Breakbot for being totally rad and chilling out in the smoking area before and after his set, chatting to whoever came up to him. That’s not something you see from every international DJ.

We can only hope to see him in a working venue next time he comes out. Leave Arthouse for Kink fans.