Curated by the Goodgod Super Club team, one of dance music’s most enigmatic figures turned up to this year’s Vivid LIVE showcase in DJ Harvey. The British maestro is renowned for his ability to pull together marathon sets, and he conducted yet another flawless performance in the intimate cavern of the Sydney Opera House’s Studio space.
Harvey is famous for his hallowed residencies at Ministry of Sound and his idiosyncratic Sarcastic Disco parties as much his brilliant touch for the remix and edit, but I hesitate to characterise him in any particular light. He’s so slippery and colourful in his character and expression, such that painting him in any specific colour never quite captures the magic of the man.
Harvey’s greatest appeal is in his unknown quantity: in other words, expect the unexpected, but come prepared for an experience.
Where Harvey’s Vivid set transcended other DJs and performers was not only in constructing a journey from the sum of parts, but in the beauty of the parts themselves; in the effortless way they fitted together to form an all-encompassing whole regardless their genre. Seamless transitions from Danish chill-out house through Italo- and diva-disco had energy levels at constant peak. This was a trance-like course for mind, body and soul refreshment.
Harvey’s greatest appeal is in his unknown quantity: in other words, expect the unexpected, but come prepared for an experience.
Harvey’s performance was effortless in outcome and experience, to be sure, but hardly effortless in selection and delivery; this a mortal man who’s entirely free to exercise his own character, the decades of graft underlined by happily hedonistic practice, and that broad, infectious grin was in full effect all night long.
Much praise must go to the Goodgod Super Club team for assembling the perfect space and staff. They reminded us of how much fun can still be had in this city of ours. Though the Studio itself lacked obvious spectacle – free of obvious decoration aside a coloured light perched above the booth – this was a refreshing limitation. The bordering bare-bone metal girders gave a receptive audience the freedom to groove and flex, and ensured the music was the focus front and centre.
As the glorious strings and resonant, thumping basslines of Ashford & Simpson’s ‘Bourgie Bourgie’ swirled you up into all their majesty, there was little care for much else.
DJ Harvey played the Sydney Opera House for Goodgod Super Club on Friday June 2. Photos by Tim da-Rin
