Nina Las Vegas Guest Blog: London
The DJ/Triple J presenter sees Drake at Wireless Festival and hangs out with Young Turks.
DJ/Triple J presenter Nina Las Vegas has been travelling, so we asked her to keep a travel diary for us. This is her third and final entry (check out her travels in Cairo, and hangs with Club Cheval, too):
A few years ago, I was a total snob about the ‘moving to London’ notion. Why would you want to go to place that’s already filled with so many Australians?
BAD ATTITUDE ALERT, RIGHT?
Fast forward to now and my tune has totally changed. London is freakin’ cool and I only needed four days in the city to change my mind.
My London-based sister Sam Lim [above left] relocated from Sydney to London almost four years ago with her band at the time, teenagersintokyo. This year saw Sam feature on UK born producer/Night Slugs label co-founder L-Vis 1990’s debut album Neon Dreams.
Sam’s whole crew is amazing. You know, the type of people who move to another country and make shit happen? Designers, musicians, restaurant owners… even walking through London Fields was motivational!
Aside from seeing friends, another reason for my London stopover was to attend the Wireless Festival on Saturday. I'd already seen a lot of the dance acts on the lineup (I'm a festival regular), so I was more excited about the R&B headliners. The-Dream, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and Drake were what I was about. Fact.
The-Dream’s performance did not disappoint, however his sound mix was terrible. I did my best to ignore this and made the most of Terius Nash’s 25 minutes on stage with a full band behind him. ‘Ditch That…’, ‘Walking On The Moon’ and ‘Shawty Is Da Shit’ were standouts.
Totally unprepared for the weather, this photo represents my attitude towards the impending mud/rain ruining my new WHITE shoes.
Watching the crowd sing along to every line in the The Weeknd’s set was crazy. It’s incredible how a couple of powerful (and freely downloadable) mixes tapes can make somebody’s career.
Like 90% of the other festival-goers (the other 10% were watching Nero), we soaked up the typically horrible London summer weather waiting for Drake.
Literally everyone was drenched.
Drake was worth every bit of water damage to my outfit. With a flawless set that featured cameos from The Weeknd and Nicki Minaj, the Canadian MC was on fire.
Standing in the rain watching Drake perform my favourite Take Care album track ‘We'll Be Fine’ is a moment I won’t forget — that and standing next to Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys the whole time, something the 22-year-old in me will also keep close (perhaps forever?).
Oh, and shout-outs to Drake for performing his part in Waka Flocka Flame’s ‘Round Of Applause’.
I have to thank two of the nicest people in London for the day’s hookups. Not only did Molly and Caius (of London-based Young Turks) make me feel very welcome on their home turf, but watching them sing all the words to every Drake song was something else!
Unfortunately (and fortunately), the inaugural Bloc festival was oversold and subsequently cancelled the night before. This meant that there were stupid amounts of DJs and producers floating around the city, itching to play somewhere.
Our kick on? XOYO with Flying Lotus and The Weeknd.
Understandably, Sunday was relatively low-key.
Before lunch at 2pm-ish, I caught the tube into Soho to quickly catch up with my two favourite Perth-raised London-based producers, Kito and ShockOne.
With releases on Mad Decent, Ed Banger and Disfigured Dubz already to her name, Kito is a fast rising star in the club scene. Currently on tour with the Mad Decent Bloc Party, we sat and talked dance music/heavier dance music/Perth vs London/global-annoying-admin-shit/and the rest, all over too many coffees.
It was all super exciting. Even her pants were buzzin’.
ShockOne is just as busy. Writing, playing, travelling; he’s doing his hometown dubstep scene proud in the UK. Having just announced a tour in Australia through September to support his new single ‘Chaos Theory’, the pair got me psyched about, well… dance music.
Later that day, Andy Murray lost Wimbledon. Tears were shed (by Murray), however I was semi-relieved. As fun as the last few days and nights had been, I don’t think I was ready for another night out.
London, #amirite?
Nina Las Vegas recently announced a national Triple J 'House Party' tour with Beni, Flume, What So Not and Deacon Rose for this August/September. Dates below!
