When I heard that Dillinja and MC GQ would be a part of Fabric London‘s awesome London Unlocked series, I was amped. I’m also the guy that introduced a Drum & Bass website named after one of Dillinja’s greatest tunes with a post named after that amazing release. Anyways, being able to see a new Dillinja set ANYTIME is cause for a celebration; it being with GQ, at the historic London Coliseum, streamed over YouTube? I stopped everything and turned up in the live chat, trying to ID tunes we’d trainspot and just generally enjoying the bass master in his element.
The Titan
Dillinja was in the zone. He ran the gamut of both his sound and the drum & bass sound, diving back with some classic jungle tracks like Adam F’s “Metropolis” and his own scorcher “Friday” alongside more modern bangers, like Benny L’s “Dayz” remix and Break’s monstrous reworking of the aforementioned “Hard Noize.” Dillinja must have known I was on (lawl), as he made sure to include some of my favorite tunes from “the Titan’s box” as GQ exclaimed while Dillinja dropped “Thugged Out Bitch.” It was a really dope event that had a fairly tremendous ending.
What did he end his set with?
Well, that’s what I was trying to figure out. If you head to this timestamp on the mix, you’ll sped right to the end of the mix, just as GQ announces it’s the last tune of the set. Initially, based on the insanity that I’d never heard coming through my AirPods, I just thought Dillinja mashed up a bunch of his more known dancefloor-destroying sounds and put them into one massive “remix, re-fix,” as GQ called it. The chat mentioned Voltage’s “Acid Trak” remix, and initially I was wondering if it was an exclusive Dillinja VIP of “Acid Trak” that he did as an homage to his own sound. After checking out the 1001tracklists tracklist attempt from the night (which also included this amazing B2B from Sherelle and Tim Reaper), I think it’s a couple of things.
Dillinja previewed Voltage’s remix of “Acid Trak” back in November, saying it was the next release on Valve. It makes perfect sense that he’d want to preview that at the end of this massive set. But that couldn’t have been everything going on there, and according to 1001tracklists, they mentioned that Dillinja also dropped his VIP of “Tunnel Grinder.” That brought me to this theory: Dillinja blended Voltage’s “Acid Trak” remix with his “Tunnel Grinder” VIP, making one stupendous tribute to, well, himself at the end of this stupendous London Unlocked set.
As MC GQ said, we’ve reached the Final Chapter.
Listen to the mix
Seriously, London Unlocked was a great series—and closing it out with a night full of jungle was right up my alley. The only thing that would’ve made this set perfect was if Dillinja had done a VIP of “It Ain’t Too Loud” and added “London Coliseum? Rinsed it” in there somewhere, but that might be a joke I will chuckle to by myself in the corner of the dance. Listen to the full set via Mixcloud below.