Dutch DJ/Producer Alvaro is well known for his prowess, whether its his original productions, collaborations or remixes with his usual partner in crime, Quintino or other artists, he has developed quite a name for himself in a relatively short period of time.

To describe his style, we’d say it’s dirty electro/stomp house which seems to be quite the rage these days, with a majority of charts being dominated by similar sounds. Alvaro has carved quite a niche for himself, with his tracks being supported by the industry’s biggest names like Hardwell, Tiesto, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, just to name a few.

His most recent notable productions have been United (Ultra Music Festival Anthem) and the raw club anthem Welcome to the Jungle which are just some of the tracks that have formed a part of almost every playlist at all the major music festivals around the world.

Just recently, much to the delight of many, he decided to stop by at Royalty, Mumbai and our team stopped by to check out what he had to offer.  And we must say, we were witness to quite a show.

We walked into Royalty at around 11.30 pm to find the famous Nawed Khan on the decks. DJ Nawed has been dj-ing professionally for the past decade. A regular name in clubs around India and Dubai and more recently in South Africa, Hong Kong, Kenya, Indonesia, and Bahrain, Nawed has stormed the world with unprecedented beats. Also famous for his mixing on the popular Indian Dance Music Request show CRAVE and online radio show Together With Nikhil Chinappa. 

The beautiful synth riff of Andrew Bayer’s England welcomed us, and we’d already begun grooving. Nawed Khan was no stranger to opening for big acts. He was seen behind the console mixing so nonchalantly, as if he was born with his incredible mixing talents. His set was a perfect precursor to Alvaro’s prolific set that was to later dominate the sound system that night. It wasn’t too chilled, nor was it too heavy. He had the right balance. He played some phenomenal hits like Avicii & Nicky Romero’s I Could Be The One and Deniz Koyu’s and Dirty South’s Halo.

At about 12:30 am, Alvaro took to the decks and was greeted by a roar of thrilled electro hungry revelers, accompanied by his own MC, to make sure that the energy doesn’t drop. He started off by feeding the hungry crowd with his smash hit, Make The Crowd Go, and quickly mashed it up with Chuckie & GlowInTheDark’s NRG.

Starting off with a bang, not once did he let the energy levels drop, especially since he started with such high octane productions.  From then on he whipped out his first sling of unbelievable mash-ups, starting with Rihanna’s Diamonds with Sidney Samson and Martin Garrix’s Trojan, which had almost every dizzy headed girl in the crowd scream the lyrics out at the top of  her voice. The drop however made sure everyone got jumping as it was everyone’s favourite.

Once, he got everyone in the groove, he played the fabulous Sick Individuals remix of Icona Pop’s I Love It, after which he cued in Blasterjaxx famous track, Snake. This recent gem from the Blasterjaxx duo, has been making waves ever since Alvaro dropped it at his EDC set. The high-pitched synth tone layered over the hard hitting beat, made everyone lose control.

Further into the night we were treated to a set of brilliant mash ups. MAKJ & Hardwell’s Countdown with Justice Vs Simian’s We Are Your Friends definitely took the cake and it didn’t stop there as Alvaro had even more smashing tunes in store for us. To name a few, he mixed Calvin Harris’ and Example’s We’ll be Coming Back with Zedd’s Clarity, and adding to that was a concoction of Starkiller’s & Dimitri KO’s Pressure and Bingo Player’s Rattle. Each mash-up drove the crowd wild with each successful transition. Alvaro had literally given the crowd exactly what they wanted, a perfect blend of today’s commercial dance hits, with banging, system destroying electro and big room drops.

Around this point the energy at the club was peaking, and it was only to be amplified and controlled by Alvaro’s MC, cheering on the crowd with every build up and drop. He played Henry Fong’s edit of Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat, which had everyone scream out the lyrics in unison and followed it up with Hardwell’s edit of Blasterjaxx’s Fifteen and Showtek’s Slowdown. 

He then went on to play Hardwell’s spectacular mash up of  John Dahlback & Greg Cerrone & Lucky Date vs. Tiesto & Calvin Harris feat. Florence Welch – Sweet Nothing vs. Every Breath, another crowd favorite.  The mash-up suddenly led every couple in the audience to find themselves locked in embrace, and ironically enough, that embrace was broken by the monster drop that followed, sending everyone’s fists bumping and feet stomping.

Moving on, he went on to drop the mac-daddy of all mash-ups. A spectacular bomb designed specifically to destroy the dance floor.  It had all the best parts of Martin Garrix’s Animals, Alvaro & Mercer’s Welcome To The Jungle and Alvaro’s Make the Crowd Go. Most of us were so astonished by the sheer versatility and finesse put into constructing this mash up, that we couldn’t really fathom out which of the individual tracks got us more pumped. Following this, he took the crowd by surprise by fading in the vocals of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit as a build up to a smashing drop, courtesy Showtek’s Cannonball.

At around this point, when everyone had almost lost themselves dancing, the MC did the unthinkable. He asked everyone present to sit down. And sit down we did, he had cued up the drop to Welcome to the Jungle , and when the beat dropped, everyone jumped up unison. It was sort of Royalty’s version of the Ultra Music Festival, making everyone who wasn’t present this year at Miami get a little slice of that huge out door festival feel, right here on their home ground.

As the night progressed, the crowd raged harder & harder to anything and everything Alvaro dished out, which ranged from his mash-up of Welcome to The Jungle with the vocals from Steve Aoki’s No Beef, followed by Tiesto’s Louder Than Boom. Sultan & Ned Shepherd’s edit of Bruno Mars’ Locked out of Heaven, again, a track which brought out the love from everyone as they mouthed out the lyrics. This was followed by David Guetta’s Ain’t a Party.

When he was done,  the crowd were left begging for more. All present cheered loudly to have the Dutchman perform one last track. “One More” was the only call that echoed throughout the club as patrons were eager to be blown away one last time by Alvaro’s dance-floor demolishing tunes. He finally gave in to the undeniable pleas of the audience, and cued up the Steve Aoki edit of Kid Cudi’s Pursuit of Happiness.

Now for those who aren’t too fond of electro, Alvaro’s entire set was filled with productions that have spent a considerable amount of time on the Beatport top 10 but what set him apart was the sheer showmanship of his MC that made his set so much more interactive with the crowd. To add to that, the ingenuity of his mixing was beyond doubt, phenomenal. He had all the right timings cued and the transitions between each song were astonishingly effortless. In fact his mash-ups sounded like whole new productions in themselves.

According to me, a good night is measured by how sore your feet are and how hoarse your throat is, by the end of it. By the end of that night, we could barely walk or talk, which means it really was a brilliant night.

Special thanks to Submerge & WMS for putting the colossal night together!

________________________________________________________________________________________

Reviewed by: Shule Puri

Edited by: Aditya Seth