What’s a Fringe Festival without a visit to the Garden of Unearthly Delights, and what would the Garden be without the Spiegeltent?
This is a rhetorical question because everyone understands the iconic status of the Spiegeltent, and if a show makes it into the tent, it’s usually one you can trust. DJ Phone Home takes over the tent every weekend at midnight (11:59, to be precise) to give party-goers a chance to dance, but this isn’t your regular dance party; this one involves audience participation.
DJ Andrew McClelland asks you to text in your favourite songs and so it goes that those songs compete against one another for their right to be heard. Through the power of more texting, or the occasional “yell for your song”, or even a good old tug-a-war, one song will win and the crowd will jump up and down.
It’s clear McClelland really likes his job. He steps out from behind the records long enough to dance (really hard) and sing (like Milli Vanilli) and make this-is-great-isn’t-it? Eye contact with as many people as he can. He was as comfortable moving to Five Seconds of Summer as he was to Rage Against the Machine and though I couldn’t help but dance, I would’ve been pretty entertained just sitting down with a beer and watching him.
He played it really safe for most of the night, with ’80s pop dominating, but I suppose that reflected the mood of the audience. I was craving a bit more funk, a bit more house, and was occasionally rewarded with a good old Beastie Boys track – but then, I wasn’t running the show, nor was the DJ.
There were a handful of ’60s and ’70s soulsters and a few ’90s grunge faves, along with some more recent songs, as recent as Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift. If this doesn’t sound like your idea of good dance music, get a group together of like-minded music listeners and change it up!
Get on down to the Spiegeltent and put the show to the test; see how legit it really is.
DJ Phone Home rocks the Aurora Spiegeltent & Deluxe tent Fridays and Saturdays until March 14, and Monday, March 8, at 11.59.
