Unkle Live in NYC
For the first time in 13 years, UNKLE performed in NYC at The Knockdown Center on September 14, 2023. They performed a mix of clubby remixes and mashups covering every era since their 1998 debut album up to this year’s Rōnin II mixtape.
UNKLE are basically James Lavelle and whoever is working with him at the time. For 1998's Psyence Fiction he worked with DJ Shadow, and has more recently worked with Steven Weston and Miink. Previous incarnations of UNKLE have included a full band, but this was not of a DJ set with visuals.
Lavelle was joined by Steven Weston who played guitar and keyboard along to some of the set. He’s been working with UNKLE since 2017’s The Road: Part I and produced the recent Rōnin I mixtape and last year’s Catch Me When I Fall remix.
Some of the night’s best moments were the remixes from the Rōnin mixtapes, and there were a few songs by other artists mashed up in the mix too, such as the Pachanga Boys’s Time and Massive Attacks Unknown Symphony. Both of those had been mashed together as part of the UNKLE AI show in 2019, but were remixed a bit more for NYC.
It wasn’t all clubby remixes though, as the crowd went nuts when UNKLE’s Burn My Shadow was played. The song is much more rock than their more recent work, but showed how the crowd were open to hearing all of the hits across all genres on the night.
On My Knees featuring Michael Kiwanuka was also played. The song appeared on the Roma soundtrack in 2019, and the night’s visuals also sampled scenes from the film, with the beach scene played in full behind the stage as a beautiful visual accompaniment.
Speaking of the visuals, these were created by Euan McGrath and were displayed on a wide screen behind the stage so that James and Steven’s silhouette’s stood out in front of a mix of artwork from Rōnin, UNKLE logos, colours, shapes, and of course the pointman logo by Futura.
Whenever the point man appeared all of the phones in the audience rose up to take photos. It’s a cool image so it’s understandable, and really emphasised how many people in the audience were familiar not just with the music but also the deep catalogue of visuals James Lavelle and UNKLE have made part of their identity.
Some of these incorporated visuals originally used by Shynola for the Guns Blazing (Drums of Death, Pt. 1) promo video in 1998, but had been edited and updated to make them current.
Overall the show was a fantastic mix incorporating the recent songs from the Rōnin and The Road albums with the rest of UNKLE’s history into one big Greatest Hits Megamix for fans new and old. The visuals added an extra level of excitement for what at times felt more like a DJ set than a live show, but that’s hardly a problem when the mix is so fantastic.
