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LIKE A VIRIGIN: WHYT NOYZ

David Sidley, the now solo act known as Whyt Noyz storming the techno nation recalls his first big gig...

“This gig was one that both Duncan [Murray] and I did together when WHYT NOYZ was once a duo and it is a feeling we will never forget. Let me take you back a little, four weeks prior to the gig in fact.

I get an email from my agent saying that Richie [Hawtin] wants WHYT NOYZ to play before him at Kappa FutureFestival in Turin. Sounds fun!? 100% let’s do that! First shock... we see the line-up. This was the order of the artists; Adam Beyer, Derrick May, Tale Of Us, Disclosure, WHYT NOYZ, then Richie Hawtin. Time to step up! 

We heard stories about what to expect, my Italian friends say it’s this mind blowing environment that is outside with an industrial sized roof that they couldn’t explain to me in broken English.

We knew why we were there to cushion the crowd from the garage baselines and vocals of Disclosure into the relentlessness of Richie. The idea was to start a bit deep and build up into the normal WHYT NOYZ sound.

Duncan and I collated the set pretty much exact, which is something we never really do, but it was such an important set and trying to read a monster crowd, most there to see Rich, I felt confident that what we chose would work.

We got picked up in a Mercedes AMG by some Italian dude who smelt like really expensive aftershave. We drove up to the back of the stage and the bass was rattling my organs before I even got out of the car.

Dunc grabbed the gig case and a hostess grabbed my hand and asked what we wanted to drink. We got back stage and met Derrick May, Tale Of Us and a bunch of other music industry folk.

 It was a trip... eating chicken legs with Derrick as he told us about the times he used to live by us in Birmingham. Setting up was hilarious.

We are on a stage between Disclosure (who are playing all of their biggest tracks live right now) to what can only be described as an ocean of people, 18,000 to be exact!

I sent Dunc to get drinks as I always set the equipment up, and there’s me and the stage manager lying down on our fronts setting up all of my equipment on a collapsed table right infant of the crowd. I can feel the heat of the lights on stage and the roar of the crowd as I am panicking to plug in RCA 

cables. Disclosure finished and suddenly our makeshift stage popped up and we were face to face with this huge crowd. I think it took Dunc and I something like 20 minutes into the set to raise our heads and look at this crowd, it was insane. You cannot visually digest that many people, it is like you are DJing in front of a painting! This is definitely the gig I will never forget.”