Judge Jules
Logic Festival, Ynysfoprgan Farm, Swansea
Sat 8 Sept
This month sees the third Logic Festival at Ynysforgan Farm, near Swansea. Taking stock of south Wales’ appetite for hard dance mayhem and turning it into a thousands-strong bash in a big field, Logic 2018 now boasts five arenas, with notables from the worlds of hard house, hardcore and trance among other.
Headlining, and making his debut, is Judge Jules, no stranger to Welsh clubbers. You might think after 30 years as a DJ, complacency may have crept in, but Jules says, “By treating every gig as the most important one, I never rest on my laurels. I can’t afford to be complacent.” One thing he’s never done is turn up with a predetermined set: “It’s always been a question of feeling your way through it really, get a feel of the night and what the buzz is like in the venue.”
We touched upon a few things musically, including his day job as a music lawyer and the weekly syndicated radio show and accompanying podcast he helms. “In order to put that together,” says Jules, “I have to listen to lots and lots of new tracks. The work that is involved in getting that together is how I stumble across the new tunes I play in my club sets.”
It’s a wonder how someone so busy, and with various careers, gets the time to listen to all these. “I have a PA who helps me on the DJ side as I receive about 1,000 music promos a week – he narrows it down to about 100, 150 because a lot of the stuff quite blatantly isn’t right. I then listen to these and then take it from there.”
When pressed on his summer so far and his trips to Ibiza, Jules is even-handed. “It is what it is. I don’t want to be some old tosser saying ‘it’s not as good as it used to be,’ because what is there is still very, very good. The prices are the only things that are indefensible.” CARL MARSH
Tickets: £30. Info: 07763 000382 / www.logicfestival.wales