Justice: This Is Not London

As 2,599 people push and shove around me at Matter, O2, London there is a tangible sense of tension floating through the air. The crowd are already sweaty, hyped and pumped from the hip-hop infused electro of SO-ME, DJ Mehdi and Busy-P, but are now craving the real deal, raw, filthy, undiluted, brutal electro and the Justice boys never fail to deliver.
As ‘Genesis’ stirs up through the speakers and Xavier De Rosney and Gaspard Augé take their place on stage a ripple of applause soon turns to a wave as the Parisian electro house duo start spinning the wheels of steel and treating the capacity crowd to a master class of the cut and paste technique they have become famous for.
‘Genesis’ turns to ‘Phantom Pt. 1’ through to ‘1.5’ which then seamlessly transforms into crowd favourite ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ at this point it all hits the fan.
The beats seem to get heavier and heavier with the PA chewing up and spitting out classics like ‘DVNO’ and ‘Let There Be Light’ like you’ve never heard them before, the bastard children of their tame by comparison album counterparts.
Crescendos hit peaks you never thought they could and dropped beats hit you like a car wreck as melody and dissonance mix into something never heard before, something new.
The unrelenting set gives you a breath half way with a mash-up of Vampire Weekends ‘A-Punk’ but that’s all it is, a breath, before your being dragged right back into the action.
Water’s of Nazareth follows and the fierce synth line seems to tear right through the sea of movement and unify it, as people rise and fall with almost military precision.
De Rosney then drops a line of ‘We Are Your Friends’ into the mix while Augé, hands in the air, rallies the swarm to scream it in unison, a new instrument is added to the mix, the peoples voice.
Everything stops.
The bass line drops.
The horde finds something else as the atmosphere climbs to a fresh plateau, a new flux descends on the gig and everyone, without exception, is dancing.
‘We Are Your Friends’ suddenly drops into a mix of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing In the Name Of’ added to the mix is Metallica’s ‘Master Of Puppet’s’ Justice are mixing genres in the purest way possible, live.
Once the music had reached a cacophony of guitar’s, synth, bass and drums as quickly as they had come they were gone, waving goodbye to the 2,600 people that desperately wanted more.
The 50’s had Rock & Roll, the 60’s - Flower Power, the 70’s had Punk, the 80’s had a New Romance, the 90’s the Rave Scene.
Now in a cold and rainy London street I feel like I’ve found it, my generations Rock & Roll, it began in underground clubs in Paris and found its way too me through Justice, its latest exponents.
Hard.
Fast.
Loud.
Dirty.
Electro.