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It seems there’s some significant D&B history being celebrated at London’s XOYO this December.
Last week we reported on Grooverider celebrating his seminal Prototype Years album in the venue on December 29, but a few weeks before that – Sunday December 3 to be precise – another slab of D&B history is about to be re-lived and re-kindled…
Andy C – a DJ who is capable of selling out the Wembley Arena and Alexandra Palace and regularly plays to crowds of tens of thousands of ravers – is back for a special one-off marathon set.
If you were lucky enough to attend any of his previous residency shows there in both 2017 and 2019, you’ll know just how big this news is and how special this set has potential to be.
While the venue is now famed for its monthly residency sessions where a DJ plays each week and curates their own line-ups (S.P.Y is holding it down every Friday this very month for example), Andy was the very first D&B DJ to do this.
It was such big news at the time, when he announced it, the fever for tickets was so high the XOYO website broke. Once fixed, the whole residency sold out within a matter of hours… And it’s hard to imagine anyone feeling short changed from the experience.
A chance to get a flavour of the pre-stadium Andy C who cut his teeth at iconic underground jungle D&B breeding grounds of the 90s such as Telepathy and The End, the intimate size and intensity of the club brings out something special in the pioneering DJ. To put it simply, his XOYO sets have gone down in legend.
Now on Sunday December 3 – at the rather gentle slot of of 4-10pm – we hope to experience these legendary levels once again. I was fortunate enough to attend numerous XOYO sets during both of his residencies (some of which was documented on this episode of D&BTV) and can say first hand that Andy C in a medium sized club is an entirely different experience to any other set you’ve seen him play.
It’s like the difference between seeing an animal at a zoo or watching them in their natural environment on safari in the Serengeti. Seeing him make eye contact with friends and peers and drop tunes on the fly specifically for individuals he knows either in the booth or up front on the floor, is a rare and beautiful treat.
Any Andy C set will reflect the full spectrum of D&B, but for these sets he’s uncaged… And so are the crowd. The roars and cheers are so palpable you can literally squeeze them in the air and this energy tells him everything he needs to know that the floor can handle their beats and very keen on getting a proper uncompromised underground pummelling. He doesn’t hold back and goes deeper, harder and more creative than he can at any other show.
“I can get tunes that make sense or relate it to those tunes so I can build entire stories around them and really emphasise that moment,” he told me back in 2017 when UKF announced the first residency. “You can’t do that as easily at a festival level – you just don’t have time for that type of indulgence.”
On December 3 he’ll have all the time to indulge. And so will you. This could well another set for the ages.
For more insight into the XOYO residencies, and Andy’s history and journey as a D&B pioneer, you can check this podcast I did with him at the time. Big up Andy C and of course XOYO.
Tickets go on sale on Monday November 20. Get in early and try not to break the website this time!
