- Ask anyone in Edinburgh who knows the promoter Tom Ketley and they'll tell you he's a force of nature. In 2012, during his final year of university, he took over a basement bar in the city's West End, renamed it Castle Clvb and started making ambitious DJ bookings. A year later, he quit to become a stockbroker. Within 12 months, though, he was back on the scene with FLY Club, a student night held at Cabaret Voltaire in the heart of the medieval Old Town.
Fast forward five years and FLY Club has evolved into FLY Open Air, a successful festival that, on Saturday, saw 6,000 ravers churning up the driveway of Hopetoun House, an 18th-century stately home on the banks of the Firth Of Forth, just outside Edinburgh. Two of the party's original residents, Denis Sulta and Theo Kottis, have both launched international careers off the back of FLY Club, and Sulta was asked to headline and curate the latest edition of the open-air one-dayer.
The weather was good and "taps" were "aff," as per the Scottish sun ritual. The crowd was young—spotting anyone over 25 was tough—and a six-foot inflatable dinosaur bobbed amid the throng all day, eventually muscling its way onto the stage, which had been set up in the shadow of the purple-lit mansion. The lineup, a collaboration between Ketley and Sulta, was hard to resist, and the day began with the young DJ playing alongside a team of friends and fellow rising stars: Sally C, Cromby and Jenny Cheng.
Several big names were crammed into relatively few hours. Seth Troxler took over mid-afternoon, before Jayda G reflected the sunshine back at the crowd with an infectious set of soul, disco and house. Dancing harder than anyone else, she finished with Inner Life and Jocelyn Brown's take on Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," setting the tone for a life-affirming evening of music. San Proper followed with edits of Prince's "The Future" and DJ Sneak's "Fix My Sink," while Tom Trago's set of warm house featured "It's A Better Than Good Time" by Gladys Knight & The Pips. As the sun started to lower, Gerd Janson went for harder-edged tracks, though there was still space for a couple of feel-good classics: Zombie Nation's "Kernkraft 400" and Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)."
But for all the killer DJs on show, there was no questioning who was the star of this outstanding party. "I can't believe it," said Sulta, overwhelmed with emotion as Or:la played the day's second-to-last set. "I was so nervous this morning, but there are 6,000 people and an inflatable dinosaur out there, and they're loving it." As soon as he hit the stage, wearing a cream suit and with pink hair, it was all eyes on Sulta. He opened with Destiny's Child's "Lose My Breath," before pulling off a succession of sharp mixes, including one particularly audacious blend between the theme song from Disney's Alice In Wonderland and Tim Deluxe's "It Just Won't Do." Here was a major new talent announcing the arrival of a major new festival, and vice versa.
Photo credit /
Kieran Patton