The Kool Kids

Every last Saturday of the month, Amstereo gives people the opportunity to get in touch with fresh upcoming dutch artists in the field of electronic music. In their own words, it’s an event filled with Dutch acts waiting for their international breakthrough. Both curious and anxious by the opportunity to witness history in the making, Gwenny and yours truly went to go see if this axiom would indeed hold true.

Armed with guest list spots, we arrived around twelvish to find an eerily empty Flexbar, which seemed like a bad omen of things to come. Despite Jack de La’s set filled with classics from artists like Daft Punk, there were few feet to dance to it. As the evening progressed, and the tunes only got better by Mr. Wix, we couldn’t help but starting to get worried. Was it the weather? Was there another event? Is electronic music jumping the shark?

Luckily though, we were reminded by a fortyish year old couple that you’re as young as you believe you are as they busted out some moves even kids nowadays would blush about. It was both sweet and heartfelt in a way that reminded us that you define the party, not necessarily in numbers, but in spirit. It was around this time too that it was starting to get a bit more crowded with on the one hand your obligatory teenage hipsters, and on the other hand the ones I would like to call veterans; the latter being the sort of people you always end up bumping into at parties like these. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is something I’ll leave for you to decide.

But enough about that, there was clearly one act in particular that we wanted to go see, being Shook, whom we’ve been covering since pretty much day one. Filled with high expectations after seeing him perform in the Atak earlier in 2009, and being curious how he has been honing his skills in the mean time, we were expecting to get blown away again this time by his own tracks filled with his trademark feel of funk and electro. And boy, disappointed we were absolutely not, as we not only got a glimpse of new tracks but got to dance to his better known tracks too mixed in with classics from yesteryear. In particular, I remember Rise and Fall being remixed into Justice’s Genesis, followed up by the chemical brothers mixed into a track I couldn’t yet identify. All in all, it seems Amstereo did well inviting Shook as even though his set only lasted 45 minutes, it was worth the 2-3 hour trip I had to make to be there.

After congratulating the man himself on an excellent set, Rogerseventytwo and the walk picked up the turntables again but by then, we didn’t feel anything could top Shook for us that evening and decided to call it a night. In the wardrobe we asked random people what they thought about the evening and in particular about Shook. Where one girl said he wasn’t as good as Mr. Wix, another guy said that he was pretty damn good. I suppose there is no account for tastes other than your own, but as a frequent listener to his tracks, I would recommend you to go check him out whenever you can. In conclusion, we really do believe Shook has the potential to make an international breakthrough, it was just a shame not a lot of people got to witness it this time.