Review: Claude Von Stroke in Austin

Austin is no stranger to Dirtybird, but majorly fumbled promotion meant it’s introduction to Justin Martin, who played the Parish in downtown Austin last year, had a much smaller turnout than Martin merited. Night Culture (formerly Eternal Network) handled the promotion for Claude Von Stroke’s show last night at Light Bar, and packed the dance floor to squeeze-room only, successfully transplanting it’s crowd from it’s former very tired, but very large venue, Sky Lounge, to their newly acquired Light Bar.

The move was well in order, and Light Bar is a more visually interesting venue with a rooftop terrace from which sound can be heard two blocks away, so I was a little disappointed to see the party held downstairs. The downstairs indoor waterfall was also in disuse, but a new dj booth was installed and the sound was good all night.

I arrived before 11 p.m. on a very chilly evening, ready for some warmth and a drink. The bartenders were friendly, the drinks were cheap, and Jou-see was behind the decks, opening up with a suitably relaxed progressive house set. The dance floor warmed up quickly, boogie-ing early in the night and getting more crowded and frenzied through Jou-see’s brief tag with Allen Tagle and Tagle’s later tech-house set.

Already, a stream of people within the crowd had formed, moving constantly from the main bar, in the front of the house, to the bathrooms, just past the dj booth in the back of the house, but not at all hindering dancers enthralled by Tagle’s set.

Claude Von Stroke took the decks around midnight and moved his now packed, responsive crowd through shades of house, techy-ness and minimal early on, but pleased the crowd with a generous helping of well loved Dirtybird tracks for most of his set. He got hands in the air for “Who’s Afraid of Detroit,” and at least a dozen other tracks, including his remix of Poxymusic’s “War Paint.”

Claude kept his genre’s diverse, mixing in “Out in the Street, They Call it Murder,” as 2 a.m. approached, but bookending it abruptly with more house, then mixing in a lovely end-of-night deep house track, and finally returning to the Bird.

I missed his closing track, but left with a satisfied ear.

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Tags: Alan Tagle, Austin, Claude Von Stroke, Dirtybird, Eternal Network, Jou-see, Light Bar, Night Culture

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