Adam Freeland had all the markings of a phenomenal gig – breakbeats, an internationally renowned DJ (though one who in no way resembled his publicity photos), a Saturday night and a large number of friends in the crowd. In addition, traffic was almost non-existent so we arrived at RCA earlier than usual. All in all, everything seemed to be going fine.

So what happened?

The truth is, I still can’t put my finger on it except to say that I found the gig completely uninspiring compared to most gigs I have seen this year. While Adam Freeland mixed reasonably well, to my ears his set had neither flow nor energy, erratically veering between rare moments of break beat bliss and a soul sucking energy vacuum that had people shuffling more than dancing on the dance floor.

The crowd reaction to Freeland seemed to vary according to who you talked to and when you talked to them. Immediately surrounding me, a crowd of my friends had much the same reaction as myself, saying the music was dull and erratic. Not really pop or rock fans, we were unimpressed by Freeland’s dropping of AC/DC and Doors remixes among others, seeing them as examples of populist dance floor trickery rather than eclectic programming. Others thought the musical ramblings were brilliant, inspired, and an interesting injection of pop and rock into the electronic dance scene.

While I have been told time and time again in the last week that this is simply Freeland’s style, I find it difficult to believe that he could have come as far as he has in the world of breaks by playing such lackluster sets. While the dance floor remained full for the duration of the show, never did the atmosphere reach that level of hands in the air pandemonium that has come to characterize a good party at Astra.

As the night drew to a close, Freeland switched genres for the final tracks of his set, hitting the drum n’bass and finally upping the bpm to a level that restarted my failing heart. The party, however, was short lived and shedding all the energy he had collected over the course of the previous 10 minutes, Freeland slapped on the original version of Hendrix’s Purple Haze as his swansong, sending us out into the night trying to decide if we liked what we had just seen.