Last night I played my first ever DJ gig at Voxhall, which is the best concert venue in town and maybe even in the country. I'd been booked to play before and after the concert with French band Phoenix, who are out promoting their second album "Alphabetical". I started out playing fairly quiet stuff and then as more and more peple arrived I got into more of a party mood. There were probably about 300 people at the show and when the band went on people seemed very excited and into the music.

I don't know Phoenix's music that well, but I really like their latest singles Everything is Everything and Run, Run, Run and was pleasantly surprised to hear that they rocked out a lot more than I'd expected. But people actually seemed to be a lot more into the stuff off the "United" album, which I guess I'll have to check out at some point. People were actually so into the music that Phoenix played two sets of encores, which was pretty cool. After the concert I continued to play records and since a lot of people stayed at Voxhall after the show it turned out to be a really cool gig. After a while the band came out and talked to people and hung out, which I always think is cool. A couple of them came down and said hi to me (one of them wanted to know which song I was playing, which was Guided by Voices - Everywhere with Helicopter, and got really excited when I followed it with The Cure - Let's Go to Bed) and generally they seemed really into the music and enjoyed hanging out with the fans.

I played until half past one and after hanging out for a bit one of the crew guys came over and asked me if I knew the bar Sway. I've DJ-ed down there quite a few times and I hang out there probably once a week, so I know Sway and when asked if I'd like to take the band down there for a few drinks I obviously said that it would be my pleasure. Trying to coordinate a bar trip for ten dudes isn't easy (and I don't speak any French), so after waiting by the tour bus for a while I finally had to yell out, 'Excuse me - French people - we're leaving now!' and that did the trick. I'd phoned ahead to let people know we were coming, so when we arrived the owner had a bottle of Jack D. ready for the band, which they were quite impressed by. It was an A-List night at Sway, so the place was packed and a lot of the people there had been at the show. So we got quite a few stares when we entered (and then tried to coordinate drinks for everybody), but quickly people started talking to the guys and it seemed like everyone had a really good time.

So not only did I have a great time playing at Voxhall and seeing the concert, but we followed it up with a really cool night out. The Phoenix guys were really cool and I got a chance to talk about French football with singer Thomas Mars, who supports Paris Saint Germain. The best bit was when he told me about how unhappy former Arsenal player Sylvain Wiltord was with having to move from London to Lyon. He said that every time Wiltord was interviewed on French television he looked so incredibly sad even when he had scored and/or Lyon had won a game. So it was a really fun night and I can't wait until the 8th of October where I get to DJ before and after the Jesse Malin gig.