Every DJ has one.
A night when everything that can possibly go wrong does - and it does so in spectacular fashion. ClashMusic brings you DJ Disasters, featuring some of the most respected figures in the dance world reminiscing about those moments when it all went badly wrong.
Jack Beats link together two completely different disciplines. Plus One is a Scottish turntablist with roots in the hip hop scene, while Beni G cut his teeth with The Mixologists.
Somehow, though, it works. Except for this one time...
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So we were doing a set in Oxford in the UK a year or so ago, and we were playing after Annie Mac. As she was finishing, we began setting our stuff up and both noticed a weird electrical burning smell, which is kind of unmistakeable. Both of us thought Annie's mixer was about to blow, but nothing. We took over, started our set... same smell.
We got halfway through our set, same smell was there but more intense. We both knew something might be wrong, but carried on. as our set drew to a close we had 15 mins left to play, and then suddenly a bunch of the crowd started pointing and looking to our left. So we looked over, and we saw a full floor to ceiling stack of front of house speakers with a fire in the middle of them! They had caught on fire!
So we stopped the music because there was a lot of smoke, and suddenly loads of panic and madness behind us broke out as the bouncers and security started running around like headless chickens looking for a fire extinguisher. As this was all happening, we started to grab our gear, and looked over to the right and saw the other stack of speakers suddenly catch fire too... yes... both stacks were on fire and we were burning the club down!
Pure panic ensued, the club evacuated, the promoter accidentally turned the lights off onstage so momentarily blinded the bouncers who were trying to tackle the fire, so they started falling over the monitors and both sets of monitors then came crashing down on stage. At this point, whilst the club was ablaze and the stage was getting trashed, we decided to leg it! And as if nothing had happened, we disappeared into the night, only to realise that we were in such awe of what happened that we had forgotten to film any of it on our phones!
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Jack Beats ft Donae'o 'You Should Know' is out on May 13th.
http://www.jackbeats.co.uk