I remember in 2018 listening to Immunity an awful lot on walks to and from the Co-Op near the office, and whilst I’ve listened to other Jon Hopkins records since, I don’t think anything has had that same level of attachment to it. Still, though, I was happy to find him turning up on my doorstop in a non-festival setting.
My decision to go seated rather than standing I think is representative of a difference in my opinion of what Hopkins’ default mode is and what the broader consensus is. See, my thought process is how much I like his plaintive piano stuff, and whilst not thinking it’s full beard-stroking music, did think it was more of a sit-down thing. What I forgot, of course, is how much he also does the big rave-y stuff. Which, yes. I can see the appeal of the throng.
Nonetheless, it’s a fun time, and I am bopping along in my seat. He plays, mid-set, the title track from Immunity, the song I am most familiar with and have the most connection to, and that’s a real thrill. The rest of it, less familiar, but it’s the kind of music where that makes little difference to the experience. The visuals are good fun too, with a mix tending towards the abstract with the occasional bit of distorted real world footage creeping in.
I’m perched at the front of the side upper tier, which gives me a very good bird’s eye view of Hopkins’ stage set-up, with multiple Kaoss pads, two laptops, and a lot of other shiny gear. It was nice to see him actually, I don’t know, performing? It felt live. And he was performing physically in a way that trod the line between standing stock still and the parodic intensity of the DJ getting too into it. It was real.
LUXE as support were/was (I’m unclear without further research as to whether they are a collective or if it’s just the main woman and the two string players were effectively touring support) good, although it’s a rogue choice to present a pretty much instrumental set and then at the end do a song with vocals. Harder as well to judge what was live vs. pre-sequenced. She/they deserved a better audience, though, rather than the one they got which seemed to just get increasingly conversational as the set went on.