Review – Anjunadeep Open Air returns to Labyrinth on the Thames

Anjunadeep took over the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College for 9 hours on Sunday 9th August. One stage, seven acts, doors at two, curfew at eleven, sold out for the second year running. The best thing that happened all day was not on the running order.

Sadly William Orbit died just two days before at 69. Dosem and HANA marked it mid-set by dropping a rework of Ray of Light, Orbit’s 1998 production rebuilt over a much harder kick. Nothing was said over the mic. By the second chorus you could watch it travel across the lawn.

The label is 21 years old. Above & Beyond started it with their manager James Grant in 2005 as somewhere to put the slower records, and it has ended up filling UNESCO sites. The Greenwich debut sold out last summer and this one did the same, which tells you the format works. No second room, no clashes, one sound across the whole afternoon and evening. That only holds if the label has genuine range. This one does.

Maty Owl opened slow and stayed slow, which at two in the afternoon is exactly the right call. Catching Flies came next and gave the crowd an hour where sitting on the grass felt like a choice rather than an admission. James Grant and Jody Wisternoff came in third, which surprised me. The two men who did more than anyone to define what an Anjunadeep record sounds like are usually kept back for the close. Here they treated the slot as a walk through the back catalogue, and it made more sense mid-afternoon than it would have at ten. Romain Garcia played live after them. Then Dosem and HANA, and Orbit.

Eli & Fur had the sunset. Saxophone and vocal hooks carry further outdoors than they do in a basement, and they reached the back of the lawn. Ezequiel Arias and Marsh closed it back to back, going harder and darker than the Anjunadeep name tends to suggest, with a handful of unreleased records in the last hour. Anyone who came expecting melodic house got a shock.

The crowd here is not what you find at most electronic events in London. The audience has aged alongside the label and it showed. People in their 40’s who came in through trance in the mid-2000s were standing next to people who found Anjunadeep 16 on a playlist in February, and the whole thing stayed good-natured from first act to last. If you wanted something rougher it would have annoyed you. It did not annoy me.

The VIP ticket gets you somewhere no other London event can offer. On top of the usual upgrades it opens the Painted Hall, the ceiling Sir James Thornhill spent nineteen years on from 1707. Standing under it with a drink while a progressive house set carries in from the lawn outside is the strangest place I have ever held a pint.

Everything else ran the way it has all summer. Straight in through the gate, no crush at the front even once it filled, short queues at both bars, and Greenwich station a walk away past the Cutty Sark rather than a coach park somewhere off the M25. The sun held until it dropped behind the stage.

Nine hours is a long time to hand to one label. Anjunadeep filled it without repeating itself, then gave the day away to a producer who was not on the bill.

Labyrinth on the Thames 2026 ran from 31st July across three weekends at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich. All eight dates sold out.

by David Divehall

• Share
• Tweet
• Pin it
• Share
• Email
• More