When Gareth Emery’s India tour for 2013 was announced by Submerge, all we had to say was “Let the Concrete Angel fall”. Excited and ready to lose control, all the Emery fans came out on different social media expressing their exhilaration to listen to one of the very best in dance music, live.

Where Mumbai & Bangalore got a special treat having the astoundingly talented Jerome Isma-Ae playing alongside the world #14, Delhi got a great line-up as well with homegrown talents, Progressive Brothers and Mash playing alongside the one and only Gareth Emery.

DJ, producer, record label owner, Gareth Emery has proved himself to be a multi-faceted personality. Born and raised in Britain, Emery started off his journey for music with classical piano training. He then moved on to Jazz, Punk-Rock and then finally towards his destiny, Electronic music. In early 2002, Gareth started getting noticed after his track “Mistra” was released under his alias GTR and was supported by some of the best in the business like, Paul van Dyk, Tiesto, Ferry Corsten and Armin van Buuren. Since then, he has gone on to release some huge hits including some mind-blowing remixes and a stunning collaboration with legendary Above & Beyond. Known for his uplifting trance and unique production style, he has been DJ Mag’s highest ranked British DJ, having peaked at #7 in 2010 and #14 in 2012.

His recently concluded India tour was easily one of the most anticipated one’s, creating enough buzz to pack the venue and with a fully-packed club and one of the greatest DJ’s on stage, the night was definitely set to be a memorable one.

Being a huge fan of Emery, it had been one of my biggest desires to see him live, and it was time that not only mine, but several fans had their desire met. Travelling to blue FROG, with his ‘Northern Lights’ album in my car, I had prepared myself for the explosion to happen in the night. I usually get jumpy before seeing my favourite artists live, but this day was quite unusual because we had such an amazing line-up to warm up with.

As I entered the venue, the pounding bass began to measure with my heartbeat. The resident DJ had already warmed the crowd up and it was time for the Delhi based duo, Progressive Brothers to get on to the decks. Having opened for some big artists before and after winning the Rolling Stones contest, they were all set to burn the dance floor. The duo delivered quite a set, getting the crowd grooving with their high-end tunes like their remix of Morttagua, Metzo’s ‘No Matter’, their collaboration with Denis Sender, ’Walking on the beach’ and some of their hits like ‘Silk & Bones’ and ‘Without Your Lies’ and many more.

As if that wasn’t enough, we had yet another great opening act! Mash is known for his foot-stomping sets and has opened for great artists like Tiesto and Zedd. He ensured that everyone in the club was on the dance floor and all present were grooving as one track evolved into another. The crowd moved and danced as the much awaited star of the night was yet to come.

It was about 11:30 and time had come for Gareth Emery, to take charge of the decks. As he began his set, everyone’s hands shot up in the air. Kicking off with a superb intro ID and dropping chartbusters like W&W’s, ‘Thunder’ and Tiesto’s, ‘Take Me’, he got the crowd to rage like there was no tomorrow right in the early minutes of his set. With another fantastic ID and some huge hits from the likes of Rank-1 and Omnia, he kept the entire crowd who had packed the club on their feet and raging.

Gareth moved on to blow our minds with his anthem ‘Mansion‘, and ‘Tokyo‘. Following it up with the high energy W&W remix of Armin van Buuren’s ’This Is What It Feels Like’. To add a little kick to his set, Emery dropped an intense mash-up of Zedd’s ’Clarity’ and Knife Party’s ‘LRAD’ and he then went on to drop Orjan Nilsen’s ’No Saint Out Of Me’ which made the crowd go fanatical.

While his set comprised many of his own productions and remixes, Gareth dropped well-known tracks as he chose a track list where the crowd could celebrate some of the best and most seasoned productions. Tracks like ‘Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais Remix)’ mashed up with Gareth’s own ID and Dash Berlin’s 4AM Remix of Harwell’s stomper ’Apollo’ just left the audience in awe.

If you had kept an eye on his recent sets at different festivals, Gareth’s sets were full of incredible energy which gained further momentum from a variety of stellar mashup’s he played and his set in Delhi was no exception.

Ahead into his set, Gareth left no stone unturned to make the packed audience dance to his magnificent productions as well. With biggies like ‘Meet Her In Miami’, ‘The Saga’ and ‘Layers’, Gareth didn’t take his foot off the pedal, as the crowd hardly seemed to tire at any point of the night.

As we shifted close to the end and eagerly waited for the track of the night that had to be of course ‘Concrete Angel’, Gareth kept on teasing us dropping meanwhile some massive numbers like Eric Prydz’s ‘Every Day’ mashed up with Audien’s gigantic ‘Wayfarer’ and the foot-stomping remix by Tiesto of Noisecontrollers & Showtek’s ‘Get Loose’ that made the audience dance joyfully in unison.

Further Emery proceeded to drop his celebrated collaboration with Above & Beyond, ‘On a Good Day’ which left everyone singing in unison. He also dropped Ilan Bluestone’s ‘Sinai’ followed by BT’s blissful ‘Skylarking’ mashed up with the acapella of ‘If I Lose Myself’ by One Republic.

For all the Armin fans, ‘D# Fat’ was dropped by Gareth which led him towards  dropping his hit single ‘Sanctuary’ and Porter Robinson’s anthemic ‘Language’ which kept the spunk alive in the audience.

As we moved towards the end of the epic night with already 1:15 am ticking on the clock, Gareth Emery turned the atmosphere in a diverse direction when he dropped Tiesto’s, ‘Maximal Crazy’ in a super power remix which stood to be a peak track of the night.

In full swing, when we least expected, our ears were set apart with the enchanting lush angelic vocals of Christina Novelli and every single person in the crowd had a wide smile on their faces with hearts made by hands as they enjoyed themselves to one of the best tunes of 2012 live. With more & more people cheering out loud, as cries of ‘GARETH…!! GARETH…!! GARETH!!..’ continuously echoed, he maintained the madness he had created on the dance floor dropping the earth-shattering ’Into the Light Remix’ that left us with nothing more to possibly demand.

The emphatic cheering of the fans was rewarded as Gareth hopped right back on stage and responded to the encore with a smile, ending his extraordinary set which clearly reflected that Delhi was up to the ‘dance till you drop’ spirit for the night. We are sure that Delhi won’t be able to forget this tremendous night for a long time.

Thank you Gareth Emery for everything and we hope to see you again soon!

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Special thanks to the team at Submerge!

Review by Varun Luthra

Edited by Aditya Seth