Pete Tong has explained the special bond he has to Liverpool ahead of his gig in the city later this month.
The legendary DJ is bringing his Ibiza Classics set to Aintree Racecourse for the first time. The home of the Grand National will see the stunning reimagining of iconic house tracks mixed by Pete and performed by conductor Jules Buckley alongside The Essential Orchestra.
Pete said: “I got a phone call in January 2015 from the head of BBC Radio 1 about curating a show for the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall."
He added: “They wanted to do something more contemporary, more in tune with the Radio 1 audience. I’d never done anything like that, never worked with an orchestra, never worked with Jules, so all that happened quite quickly.
“Within five minutes of the show starting, we were looking at each other and the reaction was insane. Everyone in the Royal Albert Hall was on their feet, they were going crazy. We got backstage after the show, all looked at each other and thought, ‘we've got to do that again.’”
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Pete believes you can “never rest on your laurels” in the music industry, which is why taking a chance on new developments such as this is so important. He saw first hand Liverpool’s rave culture in the early 1990s, and how that set the scene for the next decade of music.
It was during this period that Pete developed a close connection to the city. He said: “Liverpool is such a special city for me, it was always my second city. I always feel like my story with Radio 1 started in 1991, at around the time Cream opened.
“I was already going to Liverpool to see James Barton at 051 and Steve Proctor even at The State. I ended up playing at Cream pretty much monthly throughout those first few years.”
Despite the closure of those clubs since then, Pete retains affection for those formative years. He said: “I’ve always had a special bond with the city, the city has always been such an amazing place for me.”
Pete was even in Liverpool at the turn of the millennium and recalled his performing for Radio 1 at the extravagant Cream 2000 party on the Pier Head. Although the city has changed so much in that time, Pete said that the city’s recent Eurovision celebrations showcase Liverpool’s passion for music is still going strong. He has also performed alongside CamelPhat, an English DJ duo formed in Liverpool, and is working on a new collaboration with them and Jenna Cook.
Despite this, Pete has never performed at Aintree Racecourse. He has promised that outdoor performances of Ibiza Classics bring a “different vibe” than the ones at indoor arenas during the winter.
In addition to his relentless touring schedule, Pete now runs his own DJ Academy for the next generation of performers. Despite free editing software and platforms like Soundcloud making DJing more accessible than ever, Pete argues his academy gets “into the soul” of what the profession is really about.
He said: “Everyone thinks they can learn to become a DJ just by learning how to press some buttons and sync two tracks together, but there’s a lot more that goes into it than that. It all comes from knowing your music, having a strong opinion on it and putting your set together in an entertaining way.”
According to Pete, entertaining a crowd is the most difficult art to master, with every venue being different and unique. He said: “It’s like surfing. You could be the best surfer in the world and go out to the same patch of water every single day, but every single day the waves will be different, and that’s what DJing is like.
“When you catch that wave in a club, at a festival, when you get a sequence of records right, and you elevate the vibe in the space -that’s what I’m addicted to and that’s the best feeling. Sometimes you can do it for an hour and it’s amazing, then the second hour is like ugh, not as good as the first hour.
“It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been doing it, it always feels like the perfect wave is out of reach. Every time you play, you’re trying to get that feeling.”
Pete Tong’s Ibiza Classics will take place on June 16 at Aintree Racecourse. You can buy tickets via The Jockey Club website here.
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