Klaxons vs Clean Bandit LIVE @ Oslo, Hackney 16.07.14

Presented by Xfm’s Jo Good, the final of the DieselOnTour mix competition took place at Oslo, Hackney and having beaten off competition from the likes of Benga, Waze and Odyssey and Duke Dumont, Klaxons (represented by Jamie Reynolds) and Clean Bandit (represented by Neil Amin-Smith) took to the decks to try and wow the crowd and take home the crown of DieselOnTour mix champion.

First up, with a mix featuring numerous techno and house tracks, the crowd visibly enjoyed Reynolds’ set which included what he described in his own words as ‘the remix of the year’, Tom Rowlands remix of Klaxons ‘Love Frequency’. Speaking before his set Reynolds said,

“I’ve been DJ-ing for nearly 20 years and secretly I’d like to be known as a decent DJ cos it’s like a side thing that I do. Ideally I’d like to win this competition but I’m amazed that I’ve made it to this stage. I beat Waze and Odyssey, who I love and so I feel like the man right now cos I’d made a decent mix which includes basically my friends music with stuff from Tom (Chemical Brothers) label and Dan Avery so I’m really chuffed that that got me to this stage and now I just have to impress the people that are in the queue!”

Later on I spoke to Amin-Smith about what we could expect from his set,

“Because I didn’t know what the crowd was going to be like I thought I’d go for something with a little bit more vocals and something a bit friendlier than I would usually play maybe, but I’ve just been told that Jamie is playing basically techno so maybe I don’t need to, I dunno, we’ll see.”

With a set that included crowd favourites such as ‘Hideaway’ by Kiesza, ‘Ready For Your Love’ by Gorgon City and ‘Whats Your Flava?’ by Craig David, the Clean Bandit man was definitely going for a more mainstream sound than that of his Klaxons rival and ending on a remix of Clean Bandit’s number 1 hit ‘Rather Be’ seemed like a stroke of genius until the votes had been counted.

Having so confidently claimed he would win the competition by playing the remix of the year, Jamie Reynolds was proven right as the Mercury Prize winner was announced the victor and took home the trophy, which I am sure will have made his Klaxon brothers proud.

Matt Tarr
@MattTarrJourno

Matt Tarr

Matt Tarr

Urban Music Editor
With grime and hip hop being major influences on him growing up in South East London, Matt's passion is urban music but over the years he has gathered a hugely diverse taste, ranging from Wiley to The Smiths by way of Machine Head, that has made him a very open minded individual.
Matt Tarr
Live Reviews
About Matt Tarr
With grime and hip hop being major influences on him growing up in South East London, Matt's passion is urban music but over the years he has gathered a hugely diverse taste, ranging from Wiley to The Smiths by way of Machine Head, that has made him a very open minded individual.