Wednesday 29th April 2015
When I first heard that Basshunter was coming to Lancaster of all places, my first reaction was “Wow Basshunter is coming to Lancaster?!” My second reaction was “Basshunter is coming to Lancaster…….?”. Last I heard of Basshunter was almost 9 years ago when he ruled the world for all of a summer with his smash hits “Now You’re Gone” and “All I Ever Wanted”. Since then I’ve heard little of him and assumed he had retired to a life of anonymity (save for a stretch in the Big Brother house and all the sexual escapades he gets up to in his spare time).
Fast forward a few months. Drinking triple vodka Red Bulls at 9:15pm on a Wednesday night whilst trying to get somewhat hyped in my friend’s living room (shout out Diego, Hannah, and Nick) and wondering if the hour long train journey to pay £9 for basically a two-hit wonder was worth it. Thankfully I was drunk enough to mentally bypass any kind of thought process, eventually ending up stumbling up the stairs to the familiar dull thump of dance music coming from the other room. Safe to say I didn’t expect much from this night at all.
We were inside the club for around 10.30pm whilst the warm up DJ did his thing as people gathered drinks to prepare assuming their chosen positions on the dancefloor. We went eagerly to the plastic dividers where Basshunter would eventually stand. So far, so normal club night. The constantly-posting Facebook event claimed that over 1,500 people were to attend and as the night went on with more people filing in than I had ever seen before at Elements, my skepticism at this claim began to dwindle. By the time Basshunter appeared, the party was already in full swing. At least I think so. I didn’t register that this slightly chubby man child wading through the DJ area high-fiving the uninterested staff was him, so I can’t tell you when his set officially begun. I think it must have been around 11:45pm.
To my surprise his 2 hour set was not just a play through of his discography. Occasionally he would throw in a track or two of his own, sometimes in Swedish, but they were mostly replays and remixes of popular tracks from the past year or so (“Latch by Disclosure” and “Turn Down for What by DJ Snake & Lil Jon” were personal favourites). Basshunter interspersed his set with mini-speeches about how much he loves us and thanking us for inviting us to his party. Nostalgia seemed to be a recurring theme as well – aside from the fact that I was not in Year 9 anymore and was choosing to listen to Basshunter. The sporadic playing of late 2000’s songs and request for the crowd to sing “Happy Birthday” to a girl who “looks like my ex-girlfriend” (feel free to Google Aylar Lie when not at work) confirmed that like many of us there, he was there to bask in the glory days of his world domination. Ending the night on a high with the much-anticipated “All I Ever Wanted” supports this theory.
This article may read like I’m just ripping into Basshunter, but not at all. Quite the opposite. As I sit here struggling to remember key highlights of a dance gig whilst nursing a hangover and being unable to hear my mother shouting at me for ruining my clothes over pounding ears……..I can definitely say that it was a night to remember. Well not really. But in a good way. A dance gig is almost always the same. Intoxicate yourself with a combination of drink and drugs whilst dancing your arse off before going home to sleep with your head on the toilet. The chance to do that in an environment orchestrated by someone who once dominated the world dance scene is definitely not one to pass up. Despite not being a fan of dance music, in that my dance library consists of Daft Punk and not much else, his talent was apparent even to me. Look at the photo below of our sweat drenched shirts and overexcited faces and tell me you can get that from any DJ. You can’t.
