Pretty Night

Derek Vincent Smith at iKandy. (Source: Express Photo by Nishant Matta)

For the last few days, Derek Vincent Smith has been doing the rounds of Delhi like any other tourist. One day he was at The Toddy Shop in Hauz Khas Village, gorging on some coastal food, a day before that he was in Old Delhi with a tour guide, and a day later in Gurgaon for a drink. Few recognise him but, once they find out he is the “Pretty Lights guy”, phone cameras come out of pockets, and hugs and numbers are exchanged. “We’ll see you at your gig, man,” is usually how the fans part.

On Friday night at iKandy (Le Meridien) in Gurgaon, 1,500 fans in Delhi turned up to watch Smith — whose stage name is Pretty Lights — play his debut live set in the country. Standing tall at 6’7” behind the console, Smith’s live act was a reflection of, what he calls, “electro-hip hop-soul”. That the 33-year-old American music producer knows how to keep the crowd dancing till the last beat is not news. He went from glitch hop and soul to vintage funk in 90 minutes, pausing a few times to thank the crowd. The poolside venue and the breeze seemed to be in Smith’s favour and the expected downpour, fortunately, happened much later.

It wasn’t just “push play”, mind you. Smith spent time behind that console dancing and mixing every track, and kudos to him for not going the lazy way. As expected, he played tracks from all almost all his albums and EPs. So, there was Understand me now from his 2010 EP called Making Up a Changing Mind, Keep em bouncin from his 2009 album, A million tomorrows from his 2010 record, and Hot like sauce from his 2008 album, among others. Of course, he ended the set with the label’s most well-known and loved, Finally moving from his 2006 EP (with former member of the act, Michal Menert). At 10.20 pm, when Smith mixed this song, everyone’s face lit up and they joined him in the chorus. A thank you shout and a few hugs later, Smith exited.

The party was far from over, and Smith returned to the after-party where he played official mixes of songs such as Empire state of mind by Jay Z as well as the epic mash-up of three songs by Radiohead, Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails. It was quite the party, no doubt but it hit a plateau one hour into the set. If that was broken sooner, we would have had nothing to crib about.