Annie Mac Presents Tour at The O2 Academy, Bournemouth

This November saw BBC Radio 1’s Annie Mac bring her ‘Annie Mac Presents’ (AMP) sold out tour back. Similarly to last year the event was hosted at Bournemouth’s O2 Academy, but with her, four different current artists. Redlight, Stormzy, Monki and Mele were drafted in to give Annie Mac something to shout about.

It’s easy to see why there are so many events and nights out available in the UK at the moment, especially as electronic music is enjoying a nice Renaissance period. The crowd was filled with those who seem to subscribe to Mac’s talents as a broadcaster; the party faithful. A night of fun house music that everyone can enjoy.

Bristol DJ Redlight started the night in Bournemouth. Known for his big dance tracks ‘9TS (90s Baby)’, ‘Get Out My Head’, and ‘Gold Teeth’, Redlight played an energetic and enjoyable set. The self-taught DJ always mixes a variety of music spanning house and bassline to garage, grime and hiphop. Although this set didn’t seem to be the most crowd-pleasing, as the 35-year-old disappointingly failed to drop ‘Gold Teeth’. A shame on Redlight’s part, as the song always gains a great reaction from the crowd, and sometimes that can make or break a DJ’s set. 

Something different to adding a DJ to the lineup, Annie Mac brought along Michael Omari, better known as grime artist and British MC Stormzy. The 22-year-old won the Best Grime Act award at the 2014 MOBO Awards and names himself as “a child of grime” taking inspiration from the likes of Wiley and Skepta. Having him as a choice on the AMP lineup was interesting, and it was an interesting touch to break up the relentless sound of a beat from the house DJs. However, Stomzy’s performance was less than impressive, and this came as a surprise for such a talked about and popular artist but luckily, his set only lasted thirty minutes.

Closing the night was BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ Monki, who played b2b with Mele. Monki has defined herself as an underground tastemaker. The pair played a varied set covering everything from house and bass to garage and grime. It was refreshing to hear a different kind of set, one that embodied many different kinds of dance music. They played anything from Bicep’s ‘Just’ to Jamie XX’s older track ‘Take Care.’

Ending the night with Jamie XX ensured the thinning crowd were left pleased with their night. Annie, as well as her team, have put on a great tour with a good, solid and reliable line up. Hopefully, we’ll see her bring back some more great artists next year, but, in the mean time, if you want to see the last two dates of the AMP tour you’re all out of luck. As per the rest of the tour, Annie’s two nights in Brixton this weekend are both sold out.

However, you can see Annie Mac at her returning festival, Lost & Found, in Malta next year – inSYNC will be there and you can find more information on tickets and line up here.

Venue – 9/10

DJ/Band – 8/10

Music – 8/10

Overall – 8/10