It is rare to see the work of a truly consummate professional, but British DJ Jacques Lu Cont treated the audience to just that during his exhilarating DJ set at Beta Nightclub in LoDo on Saturday night – reinforcing, rather loudly, his standing as one of the best DJs in the business.
In a roughly 90-minute set that ran right up to Beta’s 2 a.m. closing time, Lu Cont – also known as “Thin White Duke,” or, as his birth certificate says, Stuart Price – played an absolutely pulse-pounding mix of electro, deftly stretching the constraints of the dance-electro genre and smoothly alternating between sultry bass-heavy stretches and soaring treble-clef climaxes. With an ever-present smile straddling the line between confident and cocky, Lu Cont showed a sense of joy at his own work that was transmitted from the fingers on the deck into the hearts, and feet, of the audience.
Opening with an exhilarating mix of Daft Punk’s “Derezzed” and Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.,” Lu Cont conjured the kind of adrenaline-infused frenzy in a minute that resident warm-up DJs Cognition and T-Rav failed to generate during their entire preceding set. Lu Cont demonstrates an attention to detail unseen in most DJs, cleverly choosing and manipulating vocal samples and allowing his mixes ample time to build until their eventual climaxes. When the drops finally arrive, however, the payoff is huge – with Beta’s occasional liquid nitrogen gas blast into the audience only further emphasizing this fact.
Lu Cont has had the type of career every DJ dreams of having: three Grammys, production work for The Killers and Gwen Stefani (among others), remixes featured on releases namely from U2, Coldplay, Justice, Lady Gaga and Madonna, not to mention his “Thin White Duke” remix of Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” being played to millions of concertgoers across the globe as part of the group’s continent-spanning Viva la Vida tour. Lu Cont’s commercial success has undoubtedly taught him a thing or two about how to read an audience, and he knows exactly the kind of tricks and samples that will turn a simple dance party into a practically spiritual experience.
The second to last track played in his set, a new arrangement of his monumental 2005 remix of The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” was one of several moments that reached such heights. Undoubtedly the remix Lu Cont is most famous for (Google “Jacques Lu Cont Remix” and it’ll probably be the first thing you see), the sheer ecstasy created by the song’s tinkling synths and powerful beat drew joyful screams from the audience, and imbued even tired feet with just enough energy to have one more frenetic go on the floor.
Other crowd-pleasing moments, such as his mash-up remix medley of Coldplay’s “Paradise” and “Charlie Brown,” or his aforementioned Justice/Daft Punk face-off, drew similar reactions. However, even while somewhat testing the musical IQ of his audience, such as with his mid-set placement of Royksopp’s “What Else Is There?” featuring Karin Deijer, Lu Cont managed to firmly hold the attention of the crowd, who, even if hearing the particular selection for the first time, were singing along in seconds.
It is this ability, to extract electronic euphoria from both hit numbers and deeper cuts, that make Lu Cont undoubtedly one of the best DJs hitting the clubs today. The next time he’s in town, you’d be wise to spend the $10 cover charge and go dance your feet off. Your eardrums will forgive you… eventually.
