Aaron Jerome aka SBTRKT is a man that needs no introduction, and certainly not when he comes onto the stage to a roaring crowd at his sold out show at the Albert Hall in Manchester yesterday. It’s one of only a few dates he’s playing across the UK, before a gigantic march around America to continue promoting his new album ‘Wonder Where We Land’.
People have been waiting for new music to land from the masked man since his extremely impressive self-titled debut back in 2011, which managed to cross boundaries from dubstep and house and even took a few places in the charts; bringing SBTRKT a level of fame akin to the likes of his fellow Young Turk label mates The XX.
There have of course been remixes and mixes to keep people awash since then, but it wasn’t until this year that new music started to trickle through, teasing us with ‘Transitions’; a set of 3 EP’s barely making 25 minutes between them, containing the brilliant tracks ‘Kyoto’ and ‘Hold The Line’.
With the announcement of the new album, then came the tour. Back in the Albert Hall, the impressive building’s stage contains a set-up ready for one hell of a performance. SBTRKT is literally surrounded by hundreds if not a few thousand dials, nodules, switches, nobs and a couple of screens to boot… a setting that wouldn’t be amiss in a Boeing 747 jet, except planes don’t normally contain drum kits. We couldn’t help but speculate what was to come! Hardly one to falter, SBTRKT was darting about from board to board: twisting and turning, showing the crowd his own energy.
Playing a large bulk of his new album, including bringing Denai Moore (his opening act) out again for ‘The Light’ and getting the entire crowd to sing along to ‘New Dorp, New York’, there wasn’t much time for the older stuff – the more cemented crowd movers if you must.
At times it did seem like the top floor were more interested in refreshing their 3G than the show itself, but true to form and one for great moments, SBTRKT got things going well and truly when he dropped gems like ‘Something Goes Right’ and ‘Wildfire’ towards the end, which again had the entirety of the Albert Hall singing along, bouncing up and down… and chucking the free water about, quite the ending!
Speaking of which, the grand finale of the night was a surprising play of the Radiohead remix ‘Lotus Flower’. Bravo!
