Basement Jaxx

The Jockey Club's annual round of Newmarket Nights kicked off last Friday with everybody's favourite 90's boy band Five. Unfortunately, I could not make it to that one, but an event that I certainly was not going to miss was the visit to Newmarket of electronic dance duo Basement Jaxx, a dance duo that I accidentally bumped into when they were DJ-ing in San Antonio in the summer of 2001, at one of Cafe Mambo’s legendary sunset sessions. Twenty five years later, I finally get to see them again, and on one of the hottest June nights ever recorded in this country.

I love the Newmarket Nights. I am not, by nature, a gambling man, but I do adore the whole sense of summer style and occasion that The Jockey Club manages to serve up at these events. Race day is given a modern and relaxed twist, mixing a traditional race card with a few glasses of champagne, a couple of perhaps badly placed bets, and ending with a wonderful summer evening of live music as the sun slowly sets. This is the day when serious money, and plenty of wealthy overseas racehorse owners and their entourages, gets to rub shoulders with young socialites in expensive summer frocks, and tired old music fans like myself.

The thermometer in the car is reading 37 degrees Celsius as I arrive and park up, indicating that the air temperature is exactly the same outside as my body temperature is inside. Hydration is going to be the name of the game. Thank goodness for the numerous bars (all of which offer free chilled drinking water) that are liberally scattered around the concourse and enclosures.

I did manage to the pick the winners in both of the first two races, so was feeling quite pleased with myself. However, each race only had three horses to choose from, so my winnings were not life-changing. Possibly a result of the heat, but there did also seem to be several non-runners on the card? Only three of the eight races had more than four runners, which was a shame, as I rather missed the thunderous sound of many hooves galloping down the two-mile July Course, and thundering past the finishing post at the end of the final furlong.

The final race was the 20.45 Turners Apprentices Handicap. Once it had been run, and the winning bets paid out, the crowd began to collect in front of the stage between the two main grandstands, ready for the evening's music to begin, and for former Brixton club promoters Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe (aka Basement Jaxx) to hit the stage. Or, should I say, for their heads to be visible from a circular hole cut into the centre of a spectacular sloping stage, and surrounded by their band, singers and dancers. The set, appropriately enough for a racing venue, kicks off with 'Good Luck', their Top 20 hit taken from the 2023 album 'Kish Kash'.

Joined on stage by two live drummers, a trumpeter, three amazing dancers and three talented vocalists, the next hour and a half became an exciting and exhilarating journey back in time, as Buxton and Ratcliffe worked their way through a decade and more of classic dance hits. Beginning with the Latin house sounds of 'Bingo Bango', and concluding with a massive crowd sing-along to the Gary Numan-sampled 'Where's Your Head At?', we are transported back to the classic days of underground dance music, and during which the whole Newmarket concourse goes absolutely crazy. We get to sing along to dance anthems like 'Red Alert', 'Romeo' and 'Rendez Vous', and to relive the extended air-horns of early house classic 'Fly Life'. We get deep down and rooty to the intoxicating disco beat of 'Just 1 Kiss', and go tribal to the punk-inspired sounds of 'Cish Cash', which features a sample of Sham 69's youth anthem 'If The Kids Are United'. And I bet that one had the old brigade sitting up pretty sharpish in the Champagne Bar.

The lighting and the stage set was a visual treat in itself, a rich ever-changing collage of colour, graphics and video. The dancers are graceful and expressive, and their costumes are an ever-changing spectacle of colour and surprise – during 'Raindrops' a dancer seems to bloom like a tropical flower. The whole show has a vibe that combines space-age retro with dreamy Dali-esque surreality and vibrant psychedelic fantasy.

The encore opens with Basement Jaxx’s plea to 'Take Me Back To Your House', but there isn’t room for all of them in my tired old Toyota Yaris, so for me, it is 'Mermaid of Salinas', a song taken from the 2014 album 'Junto', that transports me back again, to that evening in San Antonio twenty five years ago when I first saw Basement Jaxx.

A magical treat, in incredible heat.