Having been evicted from the World Cup earlier in the evening, I was expecting glum looking faces, crying into their craft ales at the New Lion Brewery but instead, the place was packed out with gleeful groovers who appeared to be loving life despite the footie result.
With DJ Pete Isaac on the wheels of steel, there really was everything to love as he tore through classic after classic, filling the room with a vibrant mix of funk, jazz, soul, breaks, beats and hits that hit you like a sonic Inter City 125, forcing you to the floor to throw some shapes.
Looking around, the dress code was ‘eclectic’ a mixture of sequins, dreadlocks, Doc Martens, dungarees and light up shoes as very much the order of the day and it was great to see so much colour on a Saturday night.
When Jelly Jazz host an event, one thing you don’t need to be concerned about is the playlist, these chaps know their shit and can read the room like a literary classic, bringing them up, maintaining a level and then dropping beats like they were going out of fashion.
DJ Shepdog took over from Pete at 11pm sharp and maintained the groove with even more classics which saw even bigger smiles on faces as the night wore on. The art of DJing using actual vinyl is somewhat of a dying art but tonight, it was very much the centre piece of the performance and chatting to Pete Isaac a while back, I posed the question about dabbling with MP3s instead, he replied, “ I’m 100% vinyl. Although I dabbled with Serato for a year or two, liked it as a novelty for a bit but then came to hate it. For me, DJing with records and digging for records is what it's all about, I love everything about records. Looking at a laptop screen just looks and feels wack to me. But hey, I'm old and stuck in my ways.”
I called it a night before closing time (I’ve had a cold and didn’t feel 100% - don’t judge me) but as I left, I turned to look into the room and saw a sea of sweaty, smiling faces, having the time of their lives, arms in the air and dancing like nobody was watching….exactly how it should be!
A massive thanks to both Pete Isaac and DJ Shepdog for doing what they do and brining their killer show to Dartington, for more events, keep your eyes on the New Lion website where everything will be listed in due course.