In the space of 18 months, producer, singer and DJ Fred Gibson’s artist moniker has morphed from a propulsive statement of forward momentum to a sigh of resignation at his sheer ubiquity (Fred? Again?!). You can’t move for the south Londoner’s influence, be it producing pop’s A-class (Ed Sheeran, Pink, Aitch, etc), dominating festivals (both Glastonbury and Coachella, the latter alongside Skrillex and Four Tet), or inflaming the ire of the gatekeepers of electronic music who balk at his aristocratic lineage (earls and barons feature heavily in his family tree) and the twee catharsis of his trio of diaristic Actual Life albums. A recent article exploring his dominance of streaming, radio, TV idents and niche memes compared him to Coldplay; both make deeply uncool, broad-strokes emotional music to unite and soothe.
Not that the people crammed into north London hotbox Alexandra Palace seem to care what anyone thinks. Tonight is the first of four sold-out shows, with demand for tickets so high Gibson could easily have upgraded to Wembley Stadium. Before he even appears on stage, groups of twentysomething lads with close fades and Carhartt cross-body bumbags strip their tops off, while women climb on shoulders within a few seconds of opener Kyle (I Found You). But it’s a surprisingly muted start, the song’s tactile beats, wheezing riff and looped lyrical aphorisms slowly spreading across a crowd clearly up for something to sink their teeth into.
They get their wish when Gibson asks the crowd to split down the middle so he can make his way to a small B-stage where another drum machine sits waiting. The self-explanatory heater Jungle, taken from his 2022 mixtape USB, goes off like a grenade (one fan waggles a crutch in the air, clearly healed), Gibson hunched over his instrument as if trying to resuscitate it. The Flowdan and Skrillex collaboration Rumble follows quickly, the crowd essentially levitating as the song’s bowel-rupturing, machine-gun drum figure ricochets off the walls and the impressive stage design – banks of screens that spread across the ceiling and react to each jab of Gibson’s drum pads – overwhelms the senses.
Gibson hasn’t quite mastered pacing, however, and he struggles to seamlessly switch between rave ringmaster and lovelorn balladeer. The downcast Mollie (Hear Your Name), which is overwhelmed by a discordant synth line, sends people streaming to the bar, while the slow-burn catharsis of Bleu (Better With Time) works better on record than it does sighing out of gargantuan speakers. In fact, it’s all so smoothly precision-tooled, from the visuals to the immaculate sound design, that the emotional moments feel too stilted to really connect.
He’s better when he lets loose, extending Romy’s single Strong, which he co-created, into a galloping house anthem, transforming the crowd into a choir via a call-and-response moment involving the line “you don’t have to be so strong, I’m right here”. It’s that sense of community and collective healing that Gibson aims for, be it via his immaculately curated social media or his “found sounds” style of sonic tapestry. Tonight the crowd are right there, waiting, and for the most part they get what they want.
