Three days, a few too many Jagers and several hundred thousand beats into ADE, Defected‘s Greg Sawyer reports on the Defected In The House party at AIR.

In short, last night’s party at AIR was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Rarely, if ever before have two of house and techno’s greatest innovators graced a single line-up with their presence, and to see Frankie Knuckles and Kevin Saunderson standing side by side in a DJ booth was truly inspiring. 

Knuckles and Saunderson are two of the most influential artists of house and techno respectively, and the utterly packed-out main room of AIR last night proved that while both have had careers spanning more time than plenty of those in attendance have even been alive, both have arguably never been as relevant as they are today.

Words cannot possibly do their performances justice, but to say that over the course of a few hours we were treated to tracks ranging from Marshall Jefferson’s ‘Move Your Body’, Platikman’s ‘Spastik’ and The Prodigy’s ‘Everybody In The Place’ goes some way to showing just how musically diverse a night it was.

Inner City’s highly anticipated live set however was the undoubted highlight. Flanked by Paris Grey and Ann Saunderson, Kevin Saunderson guided the trio through seminal classics such as ‘Big Fun’ and ‘Good Life’ as well as their new track ‘Future’, Paris and Ann’s rich voices and Kevin’s throbbing beats and soaring chords causing almost frenzied adulation from the packed main room. 

AIR’s second room suffered a little, numbers-wise, a combination no doubt of the exceptional line-up in the main room and of being a little hidden away at the back of the club, but MK and co. did an amazing job of keeping those who made it that far happily bopping, the below video being a personal highlight.

I am of course likely to be biased in reviewing our own night, so I won’t try to convince you just how exceptional it was. For that, you’ll have to judge for yourself from the videos and pictures that will be hitting the site early next week. I’m pretty sure you won’t be disappointed.

Three down, one to go…