Mr Scruff

Taking part in the Mr Scruff experience is a far cry from the usual gig encounter but definitely one to be remembered. The extravagant and theatrical settings of Koko in Camden was the perfect choice of venue for one of Scruff's legendary 6 hour sets.

On entering the venue, you would have been forgiven for completely missing the fact that the chilled jazz music and funky Latino beats winding their way into the labyrinth-like rooms and across the immense dance floor were being created by Scruff himself, as this very talented DJ prefers to keep things understated and just gets on with delivering the tunes.

The first few hours of the evening were decidedly chilled with a completely empty dance floor and a few people just chilling out and chatting in one of the many different bars at KOKO, whilst nodding their heads along to the chilled out tunes that the tea-loving DJ was effortlessly mixing together.

However, the evening quite quickly stepped up a few notches at around 11.30, as Scruff began to spin out some exquisite afrobeat - based music, and the huge dance floor became filled with hundreds of people moving, shaking, and generally just having a bloody good time. There was definitely the air of a Brazilian carnival as we all bounced along together to the tuneful beats from across the ocean.

Mr Scruff himself remained as understated as ever, as he played out tune after tune like a pro, nodding his head along to the rhythms and giving the crowd the occasional cheeky grin when he was building up to a big bass drop. Two screens either side of him displayed his well-known cartoon-style images throughout the event and flashed up messages such as 'wobble those legs' and red triangle road signs warning 'mind the bass', with the occasional cartoon animation showing the crowd 'how to make a good brew'.

This man definitely knows what the crowd is looking for and how to build up a vibrant and versatile set of music, as he dropped tune upon tune and pumped the crowd up. By midnight the music had been tweaked up another level to a mish mash of funky reggae, dance and house tunes, and the venue was absolutely rammed with people dancing in the balconies, floor space and at the many different levels that the extravagant setting has to offer.

Scruff effortlessly dropped in his own tracks, such as 'Man Take Me Up', among his immense collection of records, however if you weren't a fan, you would never know that they were the work of his own genius, as he never indicated so. In fact Scruff never actually spoke to the crowd once during his set; he was there to provide some great tunes and that is exactly what he did.

As the night reached its epic crescendo, so did the tunes, and he spun out an eclectic and diverse combination of all the genres he had visited that night: a fusion of Latino, salsa and afrobeats merged with reggae, house and pulsating dance tracks. A night with Mr Scruff can almost be described as epic and this is made possible by the sheer talent, stamina and his definite ear for crowd-pleasing rhythms. If you can get a chance to catch him and enjoy having a good old dance to heavy beats and eclectic tunes, I would urge you to grab yourself a nice brew and jump on the Scruff wagon as soon as you can.

FUTURE GIGS