Fred again.., Alexandra Palace, London: A joyously collaborative residency review • DIY Magazine

If Fred again..’s first Ally Pally residency three years ago was an underscoring of his own emphatic mainstream domination, then this return - a four-night homecoming spell to cap his international ‘USB002’ tour - is an ecstatic affirmation of the other sounds that got him here, too. A metamorphic live run that began with the concept of playing 10 shows in 10 different cities around the world across 10 weeks (while releasing 10 new tracks to boot), these performances were purpose-built to have the same open-endedness as his ever-evolving, “infinite” ‘USB’ album (which, currently, stands at 36 tracks).

Previous outings under this banner saw him team up with Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter in Paris and three-fifths of Fontaines DC in Dublin; two weeks ago, under this same iconic roof, he united Underworld and Mike Skinner for a spine-tingling take on ‘Born Slippy’. Assembling heroes more effectively than Marvel, Fred has already set his own bar very high indeed. How, then, to keep raising the roof? With an eclectic, genre-spanning roster of innovators past and present.

Given that doors tonight were 5pm, you’d be forgiven for presuming that proceedings might take a little while to properly warm up (not least because half the crowd would have to try and hot-foot it up to North London during rush hour). Such is the DJ’s charismatic pull, though, that hordes are here from the off, most even heeding his urge to put their phones away. (Except, that is, when he unexpectedly drops an unreleased track from Harry Styles’ new album…).

Trading a traditional stage setup for one which pulls the decks forward into the vast room, allowing space for an in-the-round style crowd of guests to dance behind them, the show design somehow manages to make the Great Hall feel (relatively) intimate thanks to a floating canopy installation - a production masterstroke that undulates with the music, heightening and lowering to variously evoke the arched canvas of a festival tent or the close, sweaty ceilings of a basement club.

It’s the latter that’s in order for the night’s centrepiece - a blistering three-way exchange between JME, D Double E, and Flowdan, who trade bars both familiar (‘Too Many Men’; ‘Man Don’t Care’) and fresh (‘Rumble’) atop a deck-side platform as Fred gleefully throws out wildcard mixes. Where previously, cuts from his Mercury Prize-shortlisted breakout LP ‘Actual Life 3’ were the crux of crowd fervour, now those tracks - while still beloved - are aired alongside selects from 2024’s ‘ten days’ as sort of musical axles, more solid points around which the rest of the night can move. The whole five hour set is a party, but these guest sets are undoubtedly the life and soul.

Elsewhere, BERWYN’s turn - particularly the stomping ‘BerwynGesaffNeighbours’ - is an easy highlight, as is the curtain call appearance of La Roux for a rare live rendition of Skream’s dubstep classic ‘In For The Kill’ remix. (That she didn’t then cap it off with ‘Bulletproof’, though, is frankly criminal). But it’s perhaps tonight’s most unexpected crossover which reigns supreme. Trooping onstage, trumpets and saxophones aloft, Ezra Collective should, in theory, be outliers at a 10,000 capacity rave. And yet, for all their obvious differences, the group’s DNA is much the same as Fred’s, defined by a joyous, community-oriented call to dance. Joined by one half of electronic duo Joy (Anonymous), their roof-raising turn is the euphoric epitome of ‘USB’’s central collaborative concept.

On this tour, Fred has gathered a collection of artists who - from grime to dubstep, synth-pop to jazz - all once stood at the vanguard of pushing popular music’s traditional boundaries; tonight, he joins their ranks.