Rankin Sasha and John
Digweed, known as the electronica tandem Sasha and
Digweed, are comfortable with their place in the music world.
By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Something strange is happening here. Jet-setting music groups
aren’t supposed to choose to tour by bus, giving up entire
days to travel from gig to gig. And should two DJs decide to stop
flying and start driving, there’s no way they’d need
two buses to carry all of their equipment.
Unless, that is, they are the rather ambitious and famous DJ duo
of Sasha and Digweed, who have embarked on just such a tour this
year and plan to make it an annual or biannual Lollapalooza-style
event. The Delta Heavy tour, as it is called, will make its only
nearby stop Saturday at the Coachella festival in Indio.
The concept tour is a new idea for Sasha and Digweed, who want
to give their own flavor to the tour.
“You used to just sell one-off shows and you’d go in
there and bring your records,” said Jimmy Van M, who created
the tour’s concept and is its opening DJ.
This tour is another big step in the long careers of British DJs
Sasha and John Digweed, who met while playing the same club in
Nottingham, England in 1992.
“When we first played we hit it off and something gelled
that night,” said Digweed. “People really sensed the
way we bounced off each other and that creativity that we were
creating that was put out into the club. I think people could tell
that we were having such a good time up there and it kind of makes
the night that much more special.”
The duo has since played individual dates in both Europe and
America, begun touring, and put out albums that include the
acclaimed “Northern Exposure” series in the late
’90s and, most recently, the 2000
“Communicate.”
In addition, the British DJs held a five year residency starting
in 1996 at Twilo in New York City, which consisted of a monthly
performance. That year they also began touring, when previously
they were playing individual dates across the country.
“If you tour then everything’s crap if you
don’t get inspired, but each night it’s a different
crowd, different energy and it’s just amazing,” Digweed
said.
Often their shows reach the eight hour mark, with regular opener
Van M taking up two or three of those hours. One focus of
performing for Van M and Sasha and Digweed is to slowly build up
the energy in the room, a job which, as a DJ, takes a great deal of
control. While Sasha and Digweed keep the crowd moving during their
lengthy set, Van M is in charge of warming the audience up.
“You give them just enough to where they’re excited
but not enough to where it lets them go nuts,” Van M said.
“Just giving it a little bit and pulling back, giving a
little bit and pulling back before they can’t take it anymore
and then it just goes … I’m very respectful of what the
experience needs to be across eight hours. So if I’m doing
the first three hours I won’t play music from hours seven and
eight.”
This particular tour is a concept driven event. It is being
produced by Kevin Lyman, who started Warped Tour and produced
Lollapalooza. The two tour buses allow the DJs to have more control
over the environment in which they play.
“We used to have to go out to clubs and have to rely on
what was there,” Van M said. “We wanted to give more of
a visual aspect, more of an identity of who we are and what we do.
… We would have more tour buses if the tour would allow
it.”
In addition to musical equipment, the tour includes a visual
show, designed by Imaginary Forces, which adds a tribal feel to the
show. According to Digweed, the show isn’t just a loop of
video but instead changes with the tone of the music and the
crowd.
“There’s a whole team of people that are making sure
that the visual aspect is as important as the whole sound and the
music that’s coming out,” Digweed said.
The Delta Heavy tour is playing a wide variety of venues, from
shows of several hundreds of people to over 10,000 people,
according to Van M.
“The big shows are very impactful as far as intensity, but
it can get extremely personal with small crowds,” he
said.
While they do tour together across America from time to time,
both Sasha and Digweed have careers as respected and popular solo
DJs.
“Independently we’re both very strong
individuals,” Digweed said. “We’ve both been
playing clubs on our own for years. I think what happens when we do
something like this, it pools our strengths.”
Digweed is currently working on a solo album to be released in
June on Essential and Sasha has an album that is expected to come
out in the fall on Kinetic.
“Other people think that we’re joined at the waist,
but actually we don’t play that much together,” Digweed
said. “So when we do come around on tour, it’s a
special gig.”