When it comes to the Nervo twins, the quiet little teenagers in each of us that we all suppress, come forth. For women, the Nervo sisters are what every girl dreams of being. Their flashy, uber chic style; Their funky, ultra cool hair do’s and the most ethereal of vocal talents, make every girl daydream of how it would be to live a day as one of the two sisters.
For men, well, they’re just absolutely gorgeous, making for an age old case of “Girls want to be them, Guys want to be with them.” But all that aside, they’re an absolutely phenomenal powerhouse of talent, in terms of performing, singing and producing.
It was naturally every dance music lovers dream come true, when Sunburn had announced the Nervo India Tour. It was a three city tour, with it culminating at the famous Sunburn festival at Noida.
We were fortunate it enough to catch them during the Mumbai leg of their tour at Blue Frog.
The night kicked off with an opening set by fast rising electro duo, Beatstatic. Hailing from Mumbai, India, the dynamic duo of Jarus & Kroschild aka Beatstatic have set clubs on fire with high energy electro masterpieces. Their contagious enthusiasm and ear for great dance music is evident in their polished productions and performances. Their single I Want That Beat was featured in Beatport’s top 10 ‘Must Hear’ Electro House charts. They’ve been playing a number of gigs, and have garnered a wide recognition on the Indian Dance Music scene.
Their set packed in a number of electro hits with a bit of progressive and big room house scattered in between. They also bent themselves towards the tech direction with Fedde Le Grand’s Metrum and seamlessly flipped over to their trademark club/progressive sound with Sander Van Doorn’s Chasin’. They went on to pump up the energy with Astronaut’s remix of Dodge and Fuski’s, Call My Name and delighted the audience with Dada Life’s , Feed The Dada.
The crowd, especially the ladies, went into a tizzy again when they played the Mark Knight’s remix of Florence Welsh’s You’ve Got The Love, and a little while later, the duo made many of us hop to Sander Van Doorn’s Kangaroo.
Their set was literally dripping with electric energy, and served as a great build up to Nervo’s set. By now we were all eagerly awaiting to be enthralled by the Aussie twins and couldn’t wait for them to take stage and when Beatstatic were almost done, most of us couldn’t control ourselves with the excitement of what the twins had in store for us.
As soon as Mim and Liv Nervo walked on stage there was a huge roar from the audience and the dance floor at Blue Frog was mystically filled to the brim with a multitude of their fans. What made things even more exciting was that the twins themselves seemed super excited to perform as they had never been to India before.
Throughout 2011 the multi-talented Australian sisters began to make serious noise in the dance music world. Hit songwriters, producers and artists in their own right, NERVO have spent much of the last two years touring the world and climbing the ranks to become one of the hottest DJ duo’s on the circuit. They’ve also built an impressive profile in the U.S. having opened for Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj on the Femme Fatale tour along with DJ slots at some of the most noted dance music festivals of the likes of Electric Daisy, Lollapalooza, Tommorowland, Ultra, and Winter Music Conference. Their talent however, doesn’t stop with their DJ-ing. As songwriters NERVO have garnered great recognition owing to their great sense of melody and clever lyrics. Their big break-through as songwriters came when they co-wrote Guetta’s world-wide smash “When Love Takes Over” featuring Kelly Rowland, which charted at #1 in 11 countries across the globe and won a Grammy.
They further established their talent with the Tomorrowland 2012 anthem, The Way We See The World, their collaboration with Tomorrowland residents Dimitry Vegas, Like Mike and Afrojack. For most of the audience present who couldn’t yet believe that they were witnessing the Nervo twins live, they were hit with reality by the time the drop to this wonderful anthem came about.
The sisters then went on to play Ummet Ozcan and W&W’s collaboration, The Code, a massive club tune that made sure everyone (including the wallflowers) had their arms flailing in the air. Not being the types to shy away from all the attention, it was a delight to see both Mim & Liv groove behind the decks as well.
The most fascinating thing about every Nervo set, is that they have the right amount of love, emotion and energy all wrapped into a full session of relentless, feel-good dancing. They went on to play the beautiful Florence Welsh’s collaboration with Calvin Harris, “Sweet Nothing.” One could see a large part of the crowd raise their hands in the air with their eyes closed, mouthing out the lyrics. The Nervo twins also reflected the very same emotion right back at us with hand hearts and mischievously playful smiles. From then on they switched on to the uber groovy and dreamy Fancy Fair by SL8 and La Fuente, pumping the energy that much higher when the sick drop came about. Carrying on with this very flow, they went on to drop DVBBS & Borgeous’ dancefloor demolisher Tsunami, and everyone present got their stomp on. What added to the sheer energy were the Nervo twins bouncing with the melody and grooving with the crazy vocal samples.
The gorgeous twins then moved onto play another original, their collaboration with Afrojack and Steve Aoki, the very emotional, We’re No One. Ironically titled, this one rest assured, that Nervo aren’t just any one, they are dance music goddesses. This was followed by even more energy-infused concoctions by way of Showtek’s ,Slowdown, and the W&W remix of Armin Van Buuren and Trevor Gunthrie’s, This Is What It Feels Like. After a bevy of monster big room hits, Nervo dropped R3hab and Silvio Ecomo’s Remix of Hold On, after which we were treated to a very special production. It was Nervo’s unreleased collaboration with Ummet Ozcan & R3hab, tentatively titled Revolutions.
As if this wasn’t enough, they went on to showcase their skills behind the mixers dropping some really mean mash-ups. First off it was a mash up of the Michael Woods edit of VMS vs My Feelings for You by Avicii and Sebastien Drums with the acapella of The Way We See The World, followed by Breach’ss suggestive Jack, very deftly mixed with Nom De Strip’s Techno Saturday. This track in particular stood fresh in our memory as it had the Nervo sisters playfully act out the lyrics oh-so-tastefully and the rest of the crowd join in! We were then made privy to a very retro, funk-filled vibe with the Steve Aoki remix of 2 Unlimited’s break anthem Get Ready For This . Our crew especially loved this bit as that infamous melody was very craftily snuck in.
Nervo went back to reminding us about how exceptional their vocal talents are with their collaboration with Nicky Romero titled, Like Home. Yes, this was that part of the night where every one present caught hold of the people who meant the most to them and the twins made sure, with their energy, breathtakingly gorgeous smiles and million volt vibrancy, that everyone felt like they were at home. Once enough love was spread around the room, the twins went back to sheer dance floor destruction with TJR’s, Ode To Oi. What was spectacular about them dropping this was how co-ordinated they were. Even though they were in their own separated groove, each time the Oi sample came about, they shot their hands in the air, almost as if it was choreographed. Following this, they went on the very cool Calvin Harris edit of Fatboy Slim & Riva Starr’s, Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat. They then went down the punk road with their mash up of Blur’s Song 2 with The Bloody Beatroots and Steve Aoki’s Warp 1.9.
Throughout the show, Mim Nervo kept yelling out how she loved her first time in India already and how Bombay’s crowd was so amazing! This got the audience even more excited, as they raged even harder. Shortly after this it was time for another Nervo original, as they went on to play You’re Gonna Love Again. Once again sending love bells ringing around the room, before breaking into another festival favourite, Showtek’s Cannonball and this time around, Mim challenged us right before the drop by asking Mumbai to show them what we got and boy, did we give her much more than she expected!
They ended their beautiful, yet immensely dynamic set with another unreleased treat and the response they got was absolutely phenomenal! Rounding up their set the played yet another Nervo original. This time, their collaboration with Hook N Sling, called Reason, had everyone snapped out of being mesmerized by the Nervo twins.
The Nervo twins literally cast a spell on the audience throughout the entire set. A spell that no one else could break out of. Surely, on some level, many of you would agree with us if we said that the twins could probably be the dance music world’s re-incarnation of Aphrodite, having enchanted us with their signature brand of emotional, joyful and heartfelt music, along with power packed goodness. It was the most fun a lot of us had in the longest time, and the vibrancy of Nervo reverberated with every single individual present. You could tell that the energy levels at Blue Frog were at an all time high and by the look on Mim & Liv’s faces throughout, it can easily be said that it was one of the most fun experiences they’ve had too!
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A very special thanks to the team at Sunburn for a fantastic night!
Reviewed by: Shule Puri
Edited by: Aditya Seth