A DJ's delight: Fools Gold Tour at Revival

DJ A Trak (aka Alain Macklovitch) has already lived an inspirational life that will hopefully be made into a movie sometime in the near future: a young Jewish boy from Montreal uses his Bar mitzvah money to buy turntables and some speakers, and practices for eighteen hours a day in his basement for a few years. When he emerges, he is a force to be reckoned with, winning DJ competitions all over the world at the tender age of 16. Just over ten years after buying his first decks, he's touring with Kanye West as his official DJ, scratching on tracks by Common, remixing songs for a bunch of high profile artists and consistently making crowds go wild in clubs all around the world. Just make a damn movie about this already!Fool's Gold Records, the label recently created by A Trak along with Nick Catchdubs, brought him to Toronto for the last show of an extremely successful tour meant to promote the new label. Joining him are Catchdubs, French electro producer DJ Mehdi and rap star in-the-making (as well as A Trak's current love interest) Kid Sister. Revival Restaurant, Bar and Music Lounge was filled to the brim with electro-hipsters, hip -hop fans and aspiring turn-tablists all vying for dance floor space in a nightclub packed to capacity. Some were disappointed with the DJ's sets, others were entranced by the performance, and some were just ready to dance until dawn to whatever came out of the speakers.

The entrance I chose lead right to the front of the stage, saving me the trouble of jostling my way through most of the crowd. As I walked through the doors, the first thing I saw was a dance floor full of people dancing their hearts out to Nick Catchdub's diverse set of hip-hop, which ranged from tracks by "American Gangster" 50 Cent to British thug Dizzee Rascal, and everything in between. He put on a great show that was more than enough to keep the crowd alive as they waited for the main event: the tag team set from A Trak and Mehdi.

Next up was Chicago rapper Kid Sister. I had heard very little of her and was skeptical about the MC skills that this 5'2, ex-children's clothing store employee would actually possess. It turns out that my skepticism was unfounded; Kid Sister was not only amply skilled on the mic but also adorable as hell. Skipping back and forth on stage, she made the crowd bounce in a way that very few former retail employees could compete with. Behind her on stage was none other than A Trak himself, supplying driving beats to back up her rhymes.

After this performance came the moment that everyone had been waiting for. DJ Mehdi and A Trak teamed up behind the decks to bring down the house. The set got off to a powerful start, with A Trak impressing the crowd with his trick mixing and scratching in between a set populated with the electro staples of today (Justice, Boys Noize, and Simian Mobile Disco, to name a few). DJ Mehdi was equally impressive with his sheer energy and antics, coming to the front of the stage several times to encourage the crowd to tear the place up. Both DJs threw some of their own material into the mix as well; DJ Mehdi's club hit "I Am Somebody" and A Trak's remixes of Digitalism and Kanye tracks were just a few of the highlights.

The few complaints about the set were mainly from the turntable purists, who had expected to see more trick mixing from A Trak and were disappointed that he only showed off his skills briefly at the beginning of the show; after that he seemed to sit back and let his computer do most of the work for the remainder of his set. There was also an obvious lack of hip-hop throughout Mehdi's and A Trak's performance, which is strange seeing as A Trak is Kanye West's DJ and has released several hip hop mix tapes, not to mention that he has collaborated with some of the biggest names in rap today. Most of the hip hop was left to Catchdubs in his earlier set, while the headliners chose to stick with a standard set of electro and house.

By the middle of the set, at least half the crowd seemed either bored or just too exhausted to dance, the reason for this perhaps being that too many people wore themselves out early during Kid Sister, Catchdubs and opener Kavinsky's (who I unfortunately missed) acts. Things did pick up by the end; the crowd was somehow revitalized for the last half hour of the tag team set, but unfortunately there was almost a solid hour when most of those on the dance floor were standing around chatting, prompting A Trak to ask "Are you still with us Toronto?" The clubbers' actions (or lack thereof) were obviously perplexing the DJs who were having a lot of fun at their own party on stage.

In the end, the Fool's Gold Tour was a lot of fun, but only for maybe half the time. A more diverse set and a little more trick mixing and then everyone at Revival that night would have been happy, but solid sets from Nick Catchdubs and Kid Sister helped prop up the slightly weak Mehdi and A Trak. A Trak has worked hard and come a long way since his days of practicing in the basement of his Montreal home; let's just hope he doesn't get lazy now.