Went to Avalon on friday for the newest installment of the bi-weekly Control featuring French rising stars Don Rimini and Yuksek.

Words and pictures after the jump
The flyer said the doors opened at 10 so that’s about the time we left the westside, traffic was lighter than we expected and we arrived at like 10.45 to a sea of tweens. My initial thought was woah, I had no idea these things were all ages but I soon learned there was an early show by the jokey and hokey 3OH!3 that was just letting out. Okay so where do I go then? Bardot isn’t gonna happen right now, I’ll pass on an 18 dollar vodka soda. Oh, The Honey Lounge, got it, that’s where they’re packing the sardines before Control. People were congregated at the bar about 6 or 7 deep and there was a growing group by the door that led into Avalon. How long would we have to wait for them to clear the kiddies from the ballroom? I thought we might be in for a bit of a wait and was pleasantly surprised that we were in the main building in less than 5 minutes. Once inside with drink in hand I had a bit of a wonder around to check out who was there and I was a little shocked to not see a single familiar face. It felt like all of Los Angeles went to Miami for WMC and Orange County moved up to Hollywood. But I wasn’t there for the crowd; I was there to get my French invasion on. From the balcony where Destructo was spinning I could see the dance floor getting heavy and that the kids came to party, if France came to play, this could be a great night. By 12.15 that question had been answered, Don Rimini came to play, and play hard, to say he slayed would be an understatement. Dressed in a Zoo York hoodie and a Labbit fitted worn backwards he could have moved though the OC crowd undetected but onstage he was the center of attention and kept the dance floor packed for an hour plus. By the time Yuksek made his Los Angeles debut it was 1.30 am but the floor was still packed, unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for the entirety of his set. Not sure who started feeling it less first, the crowd or Yuksek himself but the room started feeling more and more tired as the night went on. I’m pretty sure a busy WMC, a late set time, and a flight to New York 5 hours later had something to do with it but I got the feeling Los Angeles didn’t get 100% from Yuksek and by the time his hit single Tonight dropped most of the energy had left the Avalon, and the rest of us left with it shortly there after.

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