Reviewed on Friday October 30
It would be fair to assume that with RÜFÜS playing a sold-out show close by at the Enmore Theatre, the amount of dance-ready revellers would be down on the usual count for a Friday night in Newtown. Not the case for Brisbane boy Young Franco AKA Joey Da Rin, whose capacity crowd was well and truly grooving before he hit the decks. Touring across the country for his first headline tour in support of single ‘Don’t U Want Me’ (feat. Blair de Milo), Da Rin cherry-picked a bill of local acts from each city with DJ Sports, Monoko and ‘secret special guest’ Elizabeth Rose as Sydney’s selection.
DJ Sports and Monoko set the groove with deep house beats before Rose took the bass up and BPM down. Closing with floor-fillers courtesy of the early noughties, including Madison Avenue’s ‘Don’t Call Me Baby’ and The Supermen Lovers’ ‘Starlight’, Rose successfully filled her duties of warming the crowd up.
It was, however, Da Rin’s night and he confidently took the reins, pulling everyone in to the front and declaring, “Let’s make this a party!” From there, the crowd was under his control. The standard big percussive bass drops and mixed tempos were there but many didn’t know what to do with themselves when the pace changed, awkwardly spacing out until things kicked back in again. To Da Rin’s credit, he kept things consistent but with much of the set filled with tunes and remixes not his own, it left more to be desired from his own repertoire.
That didn’t seem to bother most though, with a combination of dance classics from Crystal Waters, Mylo and Daft Punk being enough for the audience to take things to the stage and join the incredulous man of the hour. He triumphantly took it all out with a climax of heavyweights Disclosure and his own originals ‘Don’t U Want Me’, ‘Close 2 U’ and his remix of Safia’s ‘Paranoia, Ghosts & Other Sounds.’
It took much of the set to get there, but Young Franco impressed and showed what his party-making abilities are capable of.
