- Glasgow really isn't used to seeing Jeff Mills in circumstances as intimate as these. But then, nobody is: This live/DJ show at the 500-capacity Sub Club was billed as the first time Mills had played a sub-1,000 capacity space in the city in 15 years. That he decided to break his run here was a huge coup for Rub-a-Dub, the marvellous vinyl and equipment emporium round the corner, who organised the one-off party to mark the store's 18th birthday.
The place was rammed, of course, and following a varied, very un-Millsian support set from Numbers' Jackmaster, the little maestro ambled into the booth, kicked off with 15 minutes of ambient teasing and then spent the next two and three-quarter hours playing unidentifiable, industrial-inflected techno, as you'd reasonably expect him to. A vague air of disappointment made itself felt as the set goes on, however: There are Glasgow crowds who enjoy this kind of hard, one-speed, purist techno set, but they're generally found around the corner at the larger Arches, where Mills usually plays when he comes here. You could hardly nail him under the Trade Descriptions Act, though—Mills's reputation is extremely well-known, and if you pay to see him and hope for mid-set klezmer antics or tone-shifting dancehall interludes that's probably more your problem than his.
Unpredictable to the last, he finished, after a long pause, with "The Bells," and the crowd responded with the first hearty roar since Mills took to the booth. Reactions were unsurprisingly mixed at the end; "a waste of make-up" was one friend's blunt critique. "I think we're just spoiled by all the world class talent we have in Glasgow," was another friend's more balanced assessment. "It's just a shame we have to get guests over to get people to come out of the woodwork."
This viewpoint roughly dovetails with a popular perspective on the night: Seeing someone of Mills's fame and status play at the Sub Club was worth the outlay, with musical thrills a secondary concern left to others with a greater grasp of how you push a Sub Club crowd's buttons. Perhaps scheduling Jackmaster as support, playing what was pointedly not a pure techno set, was the organisers' way of tacitly acknowledging this. If so, you'd have to say they played this night about right.