For four hours Monday night, dance music fans all over the world had their eyes on Toronto. The internationally broadcast live webstream party Boiler Room set up shop in a Liberty Village warehouse spot for what was only the second Toronto edition of the popular series, and the first focused on our techno and house scenes (the previous edition was a Rap Life event back in June).
The series often feels a bit like an underground version of Electric Circus. The DJs are typically in the centre of the shot, but there’s a party happening all around them – people doing their best to pretend they’re unaware of the cameras broadcasting their awkward shuffling to the rest of the world. Some parties seem genuinely wild, while others come across more like staged simulations.
Last night’s stream is still being archived, but judging from the online comments of those who watched it live, it effectively captured the good vibes of real life. Sure, it took a few minutes (or beers) to forget about the live video, but once they cranked up the sound system it started feeling like a genuine warehouse after-hours party (and not 7 pm on a Monday). The camera equipment took up a fair amount of floor space, which meant capacity was very limited. But it was also dark and loud enough to seem authentic.
The event was billed as the 3024 Dovercourt Takeover, after the Dovercourt EP compilation that came out earlier this year on respected Dutch label 3024. Label head Martyn (the lone non-Torontonian playing) put together the EP to highlight some of the emerging Toronto talent that had caught his ear, and featured tracks by Gingy, Nautiluss, Kevin McPhee and Bruce Trail. For the party, they were joined by Basic Soul Unit and Egyptrixx, who both played great live sets.
No single event could properly represent all the aspects of Toronto’s house and techno communities, but the talent assembled did a good job of spanning a wide range of what our underground dance music scenes do best. You could hear the influences of the classic Detroit, Chicago and New York traditions, but also those of the UK and Berlin. A lot of new and unreleased music was dropped throughout the evening, with a smattering of classics thrown in.
Some might argue that Toronto needs to stop looking for validation from international record labels and websites, and there is some truth to that. But what’s wrong with showing some pride in our homegrown talent getting some recognition and love from the rest of the world?
