Last Thursday night, Adventure Club played a high-energy set to an amped up crowd at Waterloo’s Beta nightclub.
The duo, consisting of Leighton James and Christian Srigley, took the stage at 1 a.m., when the crowd was perceptibly anxious.
Having been drawn to the venue by the headliners, rather than opening acts DJ Doobie and DVBBS —who kept the crowd pacified, if not necessarily engaged — the audience shouted with relief when the duo walked on stage.
The self described “club step” duo, who hail from Montreal, arrived at Beta fresh off the heels of a summer tour schedule packed with high-profile festivals, including Montreal’s Osheaga, New York’s Electric Zoo and Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas.
“[Beta] was better than we expected. The last few events in Waterloo have been kind of iffy,” James told The Cord about the hype surrounding the Uptown venue.
After seeing Adventure Club at Montreal’s Osheaga in August, Thursday’s show had a decidedly different vibe, though one important aspect remained the same —fans going wild over their smooth bass and big drops.
“Last year we could only dream about playing such festival and for the insane numbers we played in front of,” said James of Osheaga. “Playing the biggest festival in our hometown was really a dream come true. It was magical to see a packed crowd in our hometown.”
The turnout at Beta, though notably smaller, reacted with unbridled enthusiasm as Adventure Club pumped out “Rise and Fall” ft. Krewella and a remix of Foxes’ “Youth,” tracks which have helped to skyrocket the visibility of the group on the electronic music scene since their formation in late 2011.
The duo’s energetic performances leave no doubt as to their passion for the craft and the energy they projected on Thursday was nothing short of contagious.
When The Cord spoke with the newly formed Adventure Club in November 2011, they expressed their attraction to samples with “strong female vocals.”
However, their most recent releases digress from this standard with more diverse and unexpected samples; Alexisonfire’s “To a Friend” and Brand New’s “Daisy.”
Of the change in influence, James explained, “We’re experimenting as of right now, we’ve been into a lot of future bass, deep house and UK bass.”
Those who’ve been fans of the duo since the beginning, fear not.
“We still plan to pump one of those ‘powerful female vocal’ tunes every so often.”