Chris Stussy - Awakenings Easter Festival 2022
Ah, the Awakenings Easter crowd. A magnificent blend of hardcore ravers who haven't slept since Thursday and lads in matching pastel tracksuits trying to find the perfect lighting for Instagram. Everyone is desperately pretending they aren't absolutely freezing in the Dutch spring air. But once you're inside the tent, the tight, bouncy energy of the crowd is genuinely infectious.
This Chris Stussy live set is officially labeled Techno, but it's a pure, unadulterated deep minimal tech masterclass, grooving at a slick 130.8 BPM. Technically, Stussy is unmatched in this lane; he anchors the set heavily in the 3B pocket, creating a ridiculously swung, rolling energy arc that focuses entirely on the low-end and tight hi-hats. His EQ work on the basslines is surgical. The Chris Stussy - Awakenings Easter Festival 2022 tracklist is a crate digger's dream for house heads.
Pulling out Demarkus Lewis's 'Body Tonic' is classy, but throwing in a summer remix of Rauw Alejandro's 'Todo De Ti' is him having an absolute laugh with the crowd. The journey is perfectly executed. Starting with a slick, unreleased opening track, he gets the massive tent fully swinging with East End Dubs' 'Goes Like This,' before closing out the absolute scenes with the trippy 'GSR & Metaverse - Stop Thinking, Try Feeling' as the closing track. Sorted.