Live Greg Wilson DJ mixes - in chronological order, the most recently uploaded first.

Live DJ Mixes

This is the first live mix I’ve uploaded since restrictions lifted, two hours recorded last month by the side of the River Thames on London’s South Bank between Waterloo and Westminster bridges, next to the London Eye.

BETWEEN THE BRIDGES LONDON SOUTH BANK 21.08.21 (greg wilson live mix)

Great to get my first gig of 2022 under my belt last Saturday at Ministry Of Sound. I’ve played at this legendary club a number of times down the years, but this certainly ranked amongst my favourite appearances.

In light of my Essential Mix being chosen for BBC Radio 1's classic series earlier in the month, I decided to kick off the year with a selection of some of the tracks included, a few of which are different edits/mixes to those featured back in 2009 when the mix first aired.

MINISTRY OF SOUND LONDON 29.01.22 (greg wilson live mix)

Full recording from The Social in London's West End, 18 years on from my previous appearance there, soon after I’d started DJing again, for the launch of the Don Letts 'Dread Meets B-Boys Downtown' compilation. With its recent refit, The Social surely stakes a claim to being amongst the best small venues in the land. Great close-up atmosphere and a wicked sound system in a compact 150 capacity space. 

There's a short video clip/photo montage over at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ_yi_vqRoC/

It provided the perfect opportunity for me to debut a bunch of new edits I’ve held back for the right occasion, which I thought would be The Riot at Depot Mayfield in Manchester on New Years Day, but that fell victim to the covid uncertainty. I struck lucky though - there couldn’t have been a better environment for this than The Social, complete with a fully vibed-up crowd emanating an extra special atmosphere, which, with January’s Ministry Of Sound gig (where I focused on tracks from my recently re-broadcast Essential Mix) sets the tone for 2022.

THE SOCIAL LONDON  11.02.22 (greg wilson live mix)

Recording from Brixton Disco Festival at Electric Brixton 30.04.22 - directly before Cerrone live appearance.

The final track, 'Delirium' by Francine McGee, in memory of legendary Canadian DJ Robert Ouimet, who mixed the track, one of my all-time Disco favourites. Robert had died earlier that month - he was resident at Montreal's most famous club, Lime Light, in the '70s/early '80s.

BRIXTON DISCO FESTIVAL @ ELECTRIC 30.04.22 (greg wilson live mix)

Live recording from the Stonebridge tent at Glastonbury Festival 2022.

GLASTONBURY STONEBRIDGE 23.06.22 (greg wilson live mix)

From my final festival appearance of 2022, a summer highlight from the Roller Rink at We Out Here providing a fitting conclusion to a full-on summer schedule.

ROLLER RINK @ WE OUT HERE FESTIVAL ABBOTS RIPTON 27.08.22 (greg wilson live mix)

Recording from my final London appearance on 2022 at Night Tales in Hackney 25.11.22.

NIGHT TALES LONDON 25.11.22 (greg wilson live mix)

Recorded at a trio of events in April 2023, in support of my book, Discotheque Archives, this mix is an amalgamation of these three nights – Sidney&Matilda in Sheffield (1st), Golden Lion Todmorden  (7th) and World Headquarters in Newcastle (8th). I had issues with my recording device throughout the weekend, but managed to capture enough to be able to patch between them, resulting in close on three hours of music highlighted within the pages of the book – all original versions, rather than edits/reworks.

The mix features 33 tracks, which span the years 1963-1983 and is packed with classics and cult-classics, providing a snapshot of dance music, in its many facets, during the pre-rave decades..

Book info/orders: https://superweirdsubstance.com/product/greg-wilson-discotheque-archive-extended/

DISCOTHEQUE ARCHIVES ON THE ROAD - APRIL 2023 (greg wilson live mix)

Definitely a highlight of my year so far, my 90 minute mix from the Supreme Standards stage, at Love Supreme Festival in East Sussex.

Taking place within a huge big top, which held a couple of thousand or so people, I started from a blank canvas, the crowd dispersing when the day’s programme of live acts came to a close at 10.30, with a half hour wait before I started.

There’s always a bit of trepidation in this moment, looking out at a great big empty space and trusting it will soon fill up again. I needn’t have worried, as it was bulging with party people in no time, and the whole thing ignited perfectly.

LOVE SUPREME FESTIVAL EAST SUSSEX 01.07.23 (greg wilson live mix)

The full two-hour recording of my closing slot in the Mini Moo tent on August 26th 2023 at Moovin Festival in Stockport, culminating at midnight.

MOOVIN FESTIVAL STOCKPORT 26.08.23 (greg wilson live mix)

Recorded on my debut at Freddie’s in Pikes, Ibiza 26.09.23.

PIKES IBIZA 26.09.23 (greg wilson live mix)

Recorded at Downtown Disco at Wire in Leeds on 18.11.23.

DOWNTOWN DISCO @ WIRE LEEDS 18.11.23 (greg wilson live mix)

Recorded on 10.02.24 in London’s fabled Ministry Of Sound.

MINISTRY OF SOUND LONDON 10.02.24 (greg wilson live mix)

Recorded on 12.04.24 at Koko in Camden, London.

KOKO CAMDEN 12.04.24 (greg wilson live mix)

Recording from Beat-Herder festival in Lancashire 21.07.24, where I closed out Smokey Tentacles on the final night.

SMOKY TENTACLES @ BEAT-HERDER FESTIVAL RIBBLE VALLEY 21.07.24 (greg wilson live mix)

Recording from Freddie's @ Pikes in Ibiza 07.10.24.

PIKES IBIZA 07.10.24 (greg wilson live mix)

Live recording from a special daytime event at The Social in London. 

I never normally record the audience in my mixes, but, for some strange reason, there seems to have been a mic active on my device picking up the crowd. My aversion to this is that, apart from the general ambience of the room, it also picks up people chatting in or around the booth, especially in a small compact space like we were in. I hope this isn’t distracting, but, weighing things up, it was such a good day, and its so long since I’ve uploaded a mix to SoundCloud, that I think it’s only right to share regardless.


AN AFTERNOON AT THE SOCIAL LONDON 01.03.25 (greg wilson live mix)

Greg Wilson took over on the Saturday night finale of last year’s Love Dancin’ @ We Out Here, spinning his signature disco and electro-funk sounds.

Greg Wilson at Love Dancin' [ Live from We Out Here 2024 ]

Recording from socially distanced event at Escape To Freight Island @ Depot Mayfield in Manchester 08.08.20.

A socially distanced gig is strange, but it’s all we have for now. With people required to be sat at tables and dancing a no no, a different approach was required, where I could be a bit more free-flowing in what I played without a dancefloor to take into consideration. I started off at Freight Island with a Beach Boys favourite from ’68, ‘Do It Again’, harking back to their surf style of the earlier ‘60s, having scaled the heights and sailed the psychedelic seas in the intervening years, ‘Do It Again’, with those wicked drums, carried a weight of nostalgia and a hint of melancholy – an after the summer song if you will, about a time that can never return. This seemed an appropriate starter for the situation we find ourselves in – dancing in a club or a field already a memory.

This booking, my first since I got back from Australia in March, fell just a few weeks on from the death of Denise Johnson. This was a big shock – she was literally just about to release her first solo album ‘Where Does It Go’, and nobody could have imagined that this would be issued posthumously. Denise came to the clubs I was playing at in the early-‘80s and I remember her first band Fifth Of Heaven from the latter years of the decade. She guested with likes of New Order, Electronic, Ian Brown and A Certain Ratio, but will forever be remembered for her contribution to Primal Scream's ‘Screamadelica’ in ’91.

It has to be said that the Manchester Evening News and a number of publications including The Guardian, The Independent and the NME were shambolic in reporting her death, running a picture that wasn’t Denise. I know that Dave Haslam, the former-Hacienda resident who DJ’d before me that day was one of the first to point out this insensitive blunder on social media, which evoked long-standing black stereotypes and must have been horrible for her family and friends.

I, of course, wanted to play something in memory of Denise, as I had with Andrew Weatherall following his death earlier this year. That two of the key contributors to ‘Screamadelica’ had passed within a matter of months is still difficult to take in, the chaos of the times we’re experiencing amplifying the unreality of things.

Rather than a Primal Scream track I picked out a lesser-known personal favourite Denise recorded for Creation Records with Hypnotone, 1990’s ‘Dream Beam’. The Primal Scream hook-up came about when Hypnotone performed at Danny Rampling’s legendary acid-house party Shoom in London, with Denise impressing. Hypnotone faded into the memory as she scaled the heights with the ‘Screamadelica’ LP and subsequent recordings with Primal Scream. The Jesse Jackson speech over the top of Hypnotone was unplanned, but randomly reeled up on my tape at that point for me to appropriately add its Weatherall reference.

The mix then heads off in its own direction, which turned out to carry a recurring jazz-funk theme via big back in the day tracks from George Benson, The Crusaders, Sea Level, Rodney Franklin and MFSB. These are tracks Denise would have instantly recognised from when she first started going out to the clubs. The late-'70s Jazz-Funk scene in the city, with Colin Curtis and John Grant at Rafters and regular all-dayers at The Ritz, a far too rarely mentioned, a part of Manchester’s musical lifeblood.

My next gig was supposed to be a socially distanced Halloween fancy dress at Camp and Furnace for the Liverpool Disco Festivall, but the new COVID-19 restrictions placed on Merseyside put paid to that. The good news is that it’s now been re-arranged for the final weekend of November, which falls around on the Festival’s 4th anniversary, so all is not lost and there’s something to look forward to after restrictions are lifted. Tickets/details here: skiddle.com/e/13892893

ESCAPE TO FREIGHT ISLAND @ DEPOT MAYFIELD MANCHESTER 08.08.20 (greg wilson live mix)

My mix from The Haçienda's 24 hour live stream on New Years Eve 2020.

All of the tracks I featured were from the opening two years of the ‘90s. I hadn’t set out to do this, but it was very much guided by the opening track I’d chosen, in memory of two irreplaceables we lost that year, DJ icon Andrew Weatherall and Manchester’s own Denise Johnson, both crucial to Primal Scream’s ‘Come Together’, which is followed by Weatherall’s mix of ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ by Saint Etienne, whilst Denise’s vocals feature on the lesser-known gem ‘Dream Beam’ by Hypnotone.

The event, hosted by United We Stream GM, had begun at 10am with Hewan Clarke, the club’s original resident, and concluded at 10am on NYD morning with Peter Hook. I followed on from Norman Jay MBE and DJ Paulette, and seeing all the comments on social media, it was soon clear that a lot of people felt a strong emotional response watching the DJs, some among their all-time favourites, playing much-loved tunes in empty spaces, devoid of the dancers who made that music make sense in the first place – a sad, but poignant parody. Also appearing were Haçienda Classical, Inner City, Phuture, Carl Craig, Danny Tenaglia DJ, Dj David Morales, DJ Woody, Graeme Park, Jon Dasilva, Justin Robertson, K-Klass, Moby, Soul Central, Sub Sub, Todd Terry, Tom Wainwright and Tony Humphries. It was line-up, even including a tribute to Frankie Knuckles by way of a recording of the house legend’s 2013 NYE appearance for The Haçienda at Albert Hall, Manchester.

HAÇIENDA NYE 2020 (greg wilson live mix - streamed during lockdown)

Bookings: matt@thepool-london.com 
Promos: promo@gregwilson.co.uk 
DJ Dates: https://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/upcoming-dj-dates/
Greg began DJing in 1975 and is regarded as one of the most important figures on the UK dance scene. He enjoyed hugely popular residencies in the early eighties at Wigan Pier and Manchester’s majorly influential Legend, having originally started out in his hometown, New Brighton. A pioneer of mixing in the UK, he became the first ‘dance music’ specialist hired for a regular weekly session at Manchester’s now legendary Haçienda club in 1983. Greg was instrumental in breaking the new electronic, post-disco records coming out of New York, a sound he has dubbed ‘Electro-Funk’.

In 2003 he set up electrofunkroots, a website documenting this crucial era in the evolution of dance culture. After a two decade hiatus from the booth, he returned to DJing and soon welcomed bookings throughout Europe and, subsequently, worldwide.

Greg was the first DJ to mix live on British TV, putting together the first UK radio mixes of their type for Piccadilly 261 in Manchester and showing a certain Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim) how to scratch.

Nominated by DJ Magazine for outstanding contribution, and also named amongst their top twenty remixers of all-time, Greg’s remix credits include Grace Jones, The XX, Groove Armada, Bryan Ferry, Confidence Man, Gilberto Gil and Simian Mobile Disco, whilst he’s edited tracks by A Guy Called Gerald, Talking Heads, O.M.D., Electronic, Imagination and Missy Elliot.

In January 2009 Greg’s reputation was further enhanced when his Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 received almost universal acclaim and was selected as one of 10 classics that spanned the show’s near 17 year history.

Greg’s Blog, ‘Being A DJ’, was launched in June 2010 for observations on various aspects of club culture now an online touchstone for an ever-increasing amount of dance enthusiasts and aficionados.

In August 2010 he co-curated areas at the inaugural Vintage Festival at Goodwood, which was named ‘Best New Festival’ at the UK Festival Awards.

He has produced a series of documentary podcasts, Time Capsule, Random Influences and Early 80’s Floorfillers, as well as the long-running blog series, Living To Music.

Greg has given talks on music and DJ culture at a number events at venues The Tate Gallery in Liverpool and London's Southbank and Institute Of Contemporary Arts, whilst in 2013 he was invited onto a panel alongside legendary figures Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder @ ADE in Amsterdam. 

In 2014 he unveiled the multi-media label Super Weird Substance, focusing on recording and live events. In 2015, the label released 8 vinyl singles, brought together in the 2 CD comp, 'Greg Wilson Presents Super Weird Substance'. September 2015 saw a memorable Festival No.6 Happening in Portmeirion and Greg rounded off the year with the Liverpool-based celebration of the 40th anniversary of his first club date in 1975 as well as being presented with DJ Magazine's Industry Icon award.

Greg launched his Credit To The Edit club collective at 2016's Festival No.6 and since then has taken it to Liverpool, Berlin, Brixton, Bethnal Green and finally back to Portmeirion for Festival No.6 2017.

2017 saw his label host the epic 14 Hour Super Weird Happening at Liverpool's Florrie, following a mixtape collaboration with Alan Moore, who also appeared at the Happening, whilst it also saw the digital release of The Super Weird Society's 'Gone With The Vibe', released the following year on the first Substance Select 12" vinyl alongside 'The Ghosts Of Watling Street', 'The Best Is Yet To Come' and 'Summer Came My Way'. 2018 also saw the release of Vol.3 in Greg's long-running Credit To The Edit compilation series.

After a handful of further releases, the label was put into hibernation with the onset of covid. Diversifying, ‘Greg Wilson’s Discotheque Archives’ was issued during 2020 lockdown as a limited run paperback, with more books, both Wilson’s own projects and by other authors, now planned.