The Count and Sinden, Digital, 22nd October

Having had the honour to meet and interview The Count and Sinden mere hours before their headline slot at Digital, I had the opportunity to question them on their set-list, but like every great artist and magician, they were tight-lipped on what was to come.

But what was to come was an amazing display of skill and ability as not only DJs but as performers, playing what can only be described as an enjoyable set of dance-music, house music to be exact, even for someone such as me whose ear for the electronic and dance side of music is limited.

Although their latest tour, on which this is one of the larger dates, was described by the duo themselves as an album promoting tour, this was not to say that they merely played their first release, the under-played ‘Mega Mega Mega’ from start to finish as it appears on the CD, as is the temptation with performing the latest album. Although the quality of their own album tracks and indeed the performances of them were flawless, The Count and Sinden only really hit their stride when a remix of other artist’s tracks are coming out of the decks and through the speakers.

Having spoken in the interview before about their admiration and friendship with Mr. Mark Ronson it was only minutes into their set, a fabulous reworking of Mark Ronson and the Business Int.’s ‘Bang Bang Bang’ resulted in the transformation of a, in my opinion, bland track into a dance floor filling track. The alternative-infused house-music which marks The Count and Sinden apart from other Djs in my eyes continued as later in their set, the pair dropped their fantastic collaboration with the Mystery Jets, ‘After Dark’, one of the best tracks of the past 12 months.

When a performer is as good as The Count and Sinden were, then the set list they play is irrelevant as the performance itself is so inspiring and entertaining that your lack of knowledge of the tracks fades away to pure enjoyment. The skill and indeed passion shown by both The Count and Sinden was a perfect example of a musical bond and friendship which can only be found between a limited number of musical duos. The Gallagher’s rarely spoke on stage, or even off it, Jagger and Richards have a notoriously strained relationship, but this icy working environment was not to be found at Digital with The Count and Sinden.

With one of the greatest sights I have seen on a stage was the pair playing, on various occasions, on the same set of decks, bouncing ideas of each other and making the other grin, laugh and indeed dance at a dropped beat or musical interlude. This comradely, shown initially as friendship in the interview, transformed into a seemingly telepathic musical link with the sole purpose of wowing the crowd of Digital and to reduce the dance floor to a teeming mass of movement and enjoyment.

Will Reynolds