It’s been a good summer for Bicep . The dance duo – consisting of Northern Irish childhood friends Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar – have seemingly been everywhere this year. They’ve played Glastonbury , twice.
They’ve played Hideout Festival and toured North America. Now, they’ve come back to London , where they first formed in 2009, to kick off two weeks of sets from some of the UK’s biggest electronic music artists in Finsbury Park . And as the summer sun – finally out in force – blazed down on the stage, partygoers descended for an epic four-hour set that saw the pair mix the deepest of techno cuts with touches of acid, drum and bass and garage.
This wasn’t Bicep live, per se. This was a variation of their Chroma DJ set, which they’ve been touring since September 2023. But while those are usually two hours long, this was a monster four-hour performance, and accordingly, they brought the hits and the visuals to match.
As befitting the mellow afternoon vibe, things started slowly. Cuts of Jeigo’s new house song N.W.
I.N were mixed in alongside remixed tracks of Sunhatch’s Come Feel the Love and Talal’s Nomad: perfect for waving beers along to, or indeed sitting on the slopes around the stage and watching from afar, as many did. Things kicked off properly around the one-hour mark, with the first big Bicep song: their 2022 hit Water, which had people rushing to the stage to dance along.
But for the most part, their own tracks were few and far be.