Basement Jaxx made an electrifying return to live performance with their Scarborough Open Air Theatre debut on 21st June, chronicled by Jonson Walker making his own reviewing debut for Yorkshire Coast Gigs.
After ten long years away from the touring live circuit Basement Jaxx, or Felix (Buxton) and Simon (Ratcliffe) to their mums, bring their maximalist, world conquering blend of uplifting pop house to the shores of sunny Scarborough. A lot of talk and chatter during their original mid 90s breakthrough (remember the internet was in its infancy) was often centred around how to actually catergorise the musical style of the emerging dance acts of the time. Basement Jaxx’s music, much like contemporaries, The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, The Prodigy and Underworld, could not possibly be deemed traditional rock music. Yet instead of DJing in sweaty underground taverns or under the bright neon of 90s superclubs, they took to the road and toured. They played venues more used to having The Beatles, Kinks or The Who’s back catalogues reimagined and replayed by so many countless rock wannabes trying to ride the coattails of Blur, Oasis and Supergrass. The 12” white label culture that birthed almost all dance artists at the time becoming a dimly flickering memory, giving way to NME features and reviews of their work in the Guardian.
It used to be generally recognised that as soon as dance artists crossed over from 12” singles to full albums, they became rock stars in their own right, and transcended the function rooms of South London boozers to the somewhat more visible leers and jeers of Top Of The Pops. In the Prodigy’s case they took this to a place where their live shows now resemble something more akin to a standard metal or rock show, but not Basement Jaxx. Similarly, Pendulum played this venue the night before and were seen to have veered further away from EDM and more towards the metal category. With Basement Jaxx, staying true to their roots, we can expect no guitar solos or moshpits tonight.
Basement Jaxx’s Coachella set earlier in the year, for those lucky enough to attend, looked, according to the YouTube footage, like a concert from days gone by. Arms in the air, and, to quote a somewhat overused meme though true in this case, not a phone in sight with people just living in the moment.
So on an incredibly balmy summer’s night in Scarborough the party atmosphere which was so evident in the videos of Coachella, has largely been replicated. The crowd, an impressively even split between genders, pop flower girls, alt-kids and brylcreem boys are here solely to have a good time. There’s no clash or animosity between the somewhat disparate groups of old and young, and despite (or maybe because of) some over enthusiastic policing and stewardship everyone in the audience got along like old friends.
Storm Mollison starts proceedings early with a competent and tight DJ set, 90s house and garage classics interspersed with shiny disco that spins out of the speakers like a tornado of sheer fabulousness. A former resident of Jodie Harsh’s Feel It parties, it’s fair to say that with her skills she’ll likely be climbing up the line ups of festivals and parties with great haste.
Bristol duo Eats Everything and Gardna follow, and work together brilliantly as a hype team for the main event. Eats Everything serves up a platter of crowd pleasing house anthems deep fried in garage batter, Gardna harvesting the crowds expectant energy and planting some fine if somewhat cliched emcee tactics. Yes, this is a crowd here to see 90s disco royalty, so Gardna can maybe be forgiven for the occasional ‘ooo-wup-ooo-wup’ during some of the four to floor drops and builds. Overall, an energetic warm up to tonight’s main event, Brixton’s finest – Basement Jaxx.
With the set identical to their one at Coachella, they first launched into Good Luck. An interesting choice, given it‘s more introspective flavour, and it seemed the audience were hoping for one of their chart blockbusters to get the evening going. Flylife could well have been a stronger opener, given only a portion of it was played later in the set which we’ll come back to. It could have been a fitting way to start the gig tonight as it was their first top 20 hit way back in 1997. This is a petty grumble though in the scheme of things, as Bingo Bango and Jump N’Shout followed and delivered nothing short of complete and total euphoria. Simon and Felix were joined onstage by incredibly well choreographed dancers in wonderful costumes, all retro space-age in sparkly silver with a shimmering metallic sheen. Save for the lady that blossomed as a giant flower midway through the set – that was as beautiful as it was confusing.
The production values for the show were akin to a West End Musical, the stage itself being a huge ramp, starting high at the top and tapering down at the end nearest the crowd. Felix spent a good portion of the show orchestrating events, appearing from a hole in the middle of the downward sloping stage, whilst Simon played guitar at the front left of the stage. Songs Raindrops and Do your Thing struck well with the Scarborough crowd; down at the front it was a sea of waving limbs, good vibes and daft, maniacal grins. Though following the aforementioned and brief interlude of house classic Fly Life, the audience erupted upon hearing the familiar slap bass funk intro of their first mega hit, Red Alert.
Vocals were delivered perfectly by their team of live singers and choreographed into nothing short of a celebration of pure joy. Escape and Romeo followed, the latter being a particular highlight with the chorus being bellowed out by what seemed like every single member of the six thousand strong crowd. They followed Romeo with a somewhat bizarre electronic cover of Handel’s Zadok The Priest, which whilst interesting for techno and electro nerds (guilty as charged) it cut the momentum they’d built absolutely dead. Thankfully it was soon back to full throttle as Simon strummed into life the opening chords for early hit, and possibly career best single, Rendez-Vu: “I got you in my heart, I got you in my head” Felix belted out through a vocoder, sounding like a robot AI pleading with itself to understand it’s newly discovered and almost involuntary feelings of love. What is often overlooked about Basement Jaxx and perhaps what’s kept them so vital for so long, is that despite the music itself being a flurry of samples, loops and digital co-ordination, at its core lies deceptively simple heartfelt emotions.
After the more recent single Never Say Never, that seemed to go on just a little bit too long, they hit the open air theatre with a one two punch of top ten bangers, Oh My Gosh and Just 1 Kiss. The sky had now grown dark during the year’s longest day and they had (via video screen) Siouxsie Sioux join them for Cish Cash. The former Banshee thumped out of the speakers and almost delivered the final velvet gloved, euphoric smash of a knockout blow, but was actually just a bait and switch for the real wallop and closer, Where’s Your Head At. It holds an unusual place within Basement Jaxx canon, as being somehow their most recognisable song and yet something of an outlier in their catalogue. It has an aggression that just simply does not appear anywhere else in the duo’s oeuvre. No one in Scarborough cares about how this absolute belter of a tune fits into the feelings and emotions of the other Jaxx records though. It absolutely rocks, with equal parts joy and fury, sending the North Yorkshire crowd into full scale delirium. The Basement Jaxx live experience, all dancers, singers and Felix and Simon themselves, leave the stage. The crowd, channeling their best Billy Idol, yells more, more, more and this incredibly professional team and competent production rolls back onstage to play an encore whereby they bash beats, brass, belt out rhythms and thank each other, thank everyone in attendance and take a well deserved bow, before exiting the stage at precisely half past ten in the evening.
So what are Basement Jaxx? Are they dance music? Rock Music? Does anyone even care anymore in this streaming age what genre an act can neatly fall into? Well yes, frankly. In an age where albums are overwhelmed by the algorithmic playlists of Spotify et al, musicians are being told they have to know their place. Where is that for Basement Jaxx in 2025? Whilst it may be easy to consign Basement Jaxx as a nostalgia act like so many of the dullard and derivative rock bands that have reformed in recent years, tonight’s evidence shows that’s a cop out at best or a complete disservice at worst. Their sound is instantly recognisable, you know it’s Basement Jaxx the second you hear it, whether you’re familiar with the track or not, and we can only hope that this tour brings forth a rejuvenation and a realisation. The realisation being that Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton have actually made some of the best pop music this little island has ever produced. Don’t worry, don’t panic, just hope the music keeps on playing on and on.
All photos courtesy of Cuffe & Taylor
Head to the Scarborough Open Air Theatre website to see everything else that’s coming up this summer.
