Sidney Samson @ Lavo NYC 12.6.12 [Review]

This will be my first, but certainly not my last review of a DJ spinning at Lavo. Being a nightlife promotress for many years, I’ve seen this venue go through a variety of changes; from Au Bar, 58, and Grand, they took a long hiatus and finally opened up as the fabulous nightclub Lavo from Las Vegas. With a venue and a crowd this beautiful, I know they’re here to stay for a long time. Thankfully they book big name DJs every week for our enjoyment, and this week we got to check out Sidney Samson.After pregaming at an awesome Christmas sweater party at a beautiful loft in soho, we arrived at Lavo pretty early around 11:30. The room was only starting to fill up as Steve Powers was playing an enjoyable opening set. He got us amped up with fun tunes such as one my current absolute favorites, “I love it” by Icona Pop.

Now, before I get into it, let me just say I’m not a big follower of Sidney Samson. When I first heard “Riverside” years ago at the first Electric Zoo Festival, I was obviously hooked. But I haven’t heard him come out with any real bangers since, so I was weary going into this set.

He opened with Zedd’s “Spectrum,” which don’t get me wrong, is an awesome track, but artistically seemed like an amateur opener since there are so many Zedd songs bumping on BeatPort top 100 right now. A few tracks later he was playing Mercy by Kanye and I was SUPER confused, at least he smoothly transitioned it into “Let’s Go” by Calvin Harris featuring Ne-Yo. His set was definitely mainstream including tracks like David Guetta “Turn Me On” and Gotye “Somebody That I Used To Know”. He played a mash up of Calvin Harris “Feel So Close”, but I appreciated that he threw a little Daft Punk “Around The World” in there. Enough was enough around 2:30 when I had caught wind of some celebrities heading to the club, and he started playing strictly hip hop. Just because R Kelly and Jamie Foxx are on their way, doesn’t mean I want to learn how to dougie.

 -Elzz