2012 Edinburgh Fringe

Hot Dub Time Machine - DJ Tom Loud blog

Hot Dub Time Machine

'Hot Dub Time Machine', the world's first time travelling dance party, blasts off every Thursday to Sunday at the Gilded Balloon. Partygoers travel back in time to 1954 and, powered by boogie, have to dance their way back to 2012. DJ Tom Loud provides the following update about a stage invasion that occurred on the first night...

I didn't mean for there to be a stage invasion.

I spotted my friend Benny Davis from The Axis of Awesome dancing to the side and so I grabbed him and pulled him up behind the turntables to share the view of 300 people dancing, singing, screaming and sweating to Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know, mixed with AVCII's Levels."

This was the opening night and we had somehow attracted over 300 people, in my first ever show outside of Australia. First nights are always tricky, especially with the amount of technology it takes to pilot a time travelling dance party. I have two laptops, two turntables, one DJ mixer and two midi controllers sending audio to the sound system and vision to 3 plasma TVs and a projector, while my lighting and sound tech, has a board full of strobes, blinders, movers and hazers that combine to make our little fringe show feel like a full on rock concert.

But the opening night had gone great!! Flawless even! I was ecstatic! The encore was playing, I grabbed Benny, brought him up to dance with me, then I got carried away and indicated that some of the girls in the front row should also join us on stage, and then all of sudden, there were 50 people on stage! And in the midst of the euphoria of knowing I was in the one of the great nights of my life, and that we had arrived at the Edinburgh Fringe in the best possible way with a party no one would forget, a touch of panic entered my mind as I imagined how quickly it could all end.... But of course, my saviour arrived in the form of the security guy, who promptly and politely cleared the stage.

After the room was cleared there was a foot-deep layer of plastic cups running around all the walls, a black sticky substance on the dance floor, and the stage was almost submerged in a water.... The production manager took one look and said, "this can never happen again," to which I replied, "this happens pretty much every show I do, but I promise to never do another stage invasion."

So Hot Dub Time Machine has arrived in Edinburgh, and after breaking three dancefloors at the Adelaide Fringe, we're here to bring the best time-travelling dance party the world has ever seen on Thursday-Sunday for the whole of the Fringe. We travel back to 1954, and then, starting with Rock Around the Clock, we party back to 2012, with a song a year and super power up dance moves to keep the time machine going. I hope you can make it. Just don't rush the stage!

-DJ Tom Loud

'Hot Dub Time Machine' is at the Gilded Balloon is on every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Gilded Balloon. The show starts at midnight.

Published: Friday 10th August 2012

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