A review of Calvin Harris @ Lavo, and Crookers @ Webster Hall

Hey everyone,

Last week I was able to FINALLY make it to an event at Lavo, one of NYC's newest nightclubs, to see Calvin Harris. Lavo is a branch of the same-named Las Vegas club, and is being promoted by the same group which does Marquee and Tao (which the club is across the street from). Lavo is an upscale restaurant during the day, and turns into an awesome nightclub later in the evening. Lavo has done an excellent job of developing sort of this secret desire among New Yorkers to check it out, as its website provides little to no information and its schedule of events is nowhere to be found. However the high-end nightclub is raking in celebrities and big name DJs left and right, and unless you have an in there or follow the club very closely on facebook an twitter, you can blink and miss an awesome event - most of the time the events are announced the day before, day of, or worse, pictures are posted the day after. I think this alone creates an unique appeal (at least it did for me) into finding out what the hell is going on there.

A diagnosis of the concept of the club:

Lavo has merged the two major aspects of clublife in NYC: the high-end bottles and models scene, and the hardcore bass thumping, light flashing, electronic music scene. The idea that they opened a club the offers an awesome electronic music DJ line up on a regular basis in MIDTOWN EAST is enough to make one be skepticle, curious, hopeful and impressed all at once. The night we went for Calvin Harris, we knew a promoter and luckily got in for free, which may/may not have wound up biting us in the behind as we had to get there early, and thus were forced to buy drinks to keep our party-moods going until Calvin came out. If we had not been so lucky, we would have had to pay $50 for entry, and as the hours grew later, the line grew longer and the doormen more strict. Drink prices went from standard NYC prices ($14 vodka/sodas) to very hefty (I swear I ordered four and the bill came to $60some-odd later in the night). The staff was extremely nice, and the setting was very, very cool. The club isn't too big and it's down a flight of stairs in the basement. VIP tables line the dancefloor, and if nobody has paid for them, security doesn't mind if you hang out there for a little. I believe there was one large bar and two smaller ones, but the place was very easy to navigate, so you could get wherever you needed to go rather quickly. Lavo boasts a really interesting light-show, complete with L.E.D. disco balls, and the sound system made my ears ring for a day and a half (and I have a VERY high tolerance to loud music, so that's impressive). All in all, a really unique venue, set up to please a very diversified crowd, and since its opening just a few short months ago has already hosted DJ Chuckie, Tiesto, and Calvin Harris. I love Lavo and I love what it's trying to do.

A review of the show itself:

The DJ who opened for Calvin was really good. He began the evening with mellow house, and gradually escalated the intensity to bring the mood to high just before Calvin came on around 1am. I really wasn't sure what to expect, as I am not the biggest Calvin Harris fan, but this, ladies and gentlement, is exactly why you shouldn't judge a DJ until you see them live. I guess I was expecting that sort of mellow, british house with pretty vocals and light synths that is kind of synonomous with his productions. However, Calvin dropped everything that's hot in the industry now, including SHM's ONE and a few dirty dutch beats, and essentially laced hints of the vocals from his own tunes throughout the set - a very unique way of doing things. He did however drop "I'm Not Alone", during which the crowd blew up. While his set was not long, I was very impressed as he played popular tunes from all genres of current electronic music, and mixed them very well. It should also be noted collaborater and trance superstar Tiesto made a guest appearance to support his buddy behind the decks. Read the MTV article here. (Which is another topic for another post, but the amount of coverage MTV has been giving electronic music in the US is further proof that the movement is happening and the revolution is here!)

HOWEVER----the newly named resident DJ for Lavo and the DJ who played after Calvin was INCREDIBLE. House heads, be on the look-out for Mr. Drek Martinez. He is the reason why I was out until 5am on a Thursday evening (ahem, Friday morning). My friends and I kept saying to eachother "we'll leave is the next song sucks" and hence, it took us until 5am to leave (and he was going strong!). This guy came out with chuckie and afrojack's "moombah" which in my opinion is an extremely ballsy move, because it's a pretty heavy track that should be built up to, and leaves little to be played after. But boy was I wrong, Moombah was Martinez's opening song and clearly just a warm up as to what was going to follow. I swear to God it was like this guy had my iTunes - he was playing the very best of and the more underground from chuckie, afrojack, sidney samson, LBL, David Guetta and SHM. We could not leave the dancefloor, and tried to many times. We went as far as getting our coats from the coat check and then running back to the dancefloor for another few songs. I swear to you the last hour was more fun than I had the entire night. Be on the look out for this guy, I'm not sure if he produces any of his own stuff, but he damn sure knows how to throw a party - so much fun.

Crookers Review:

Jack Beats and Crookers were at Webster Hall last week. Luckily a friend of mine got us in for free so we did not have to buy tickets (thanks Jerry!). To be honest I saw more of Jack Beats then I saw of Crookers. While electro isn't my flavor of electronic music, Jack Beats did a fine job entertaining me until Crookers came on. However, the minute Jack Beats got off the stage it was like Webster let the gates open from the Candy Raver tunnel and turned the heat up - within minutes the place went from relatively crowded to unbearably bombarded by 16 years olds thinking they're really cool because they used a fake ID and screaming about how obliderated they are or how much they were "loving life" because it was their "first time" if you catch my drift. I enjoyed Crookers for about half hour before enough was enough and I decided to head out. But they were great, typical, but great. It was a shame because they were really just starting to heat up, but so was I, so I left. If anyone else has anymore input, feel free to comment!