Indeed, Digweed has been successful enough both in those collaborations and with his solo work to buy the club in Hastings where he performs regularly each week, and for which he still serves as a promoter.

That long history of involvement in the club scene meant that Digweed's age was almost jarringly apparent at Axis. While the 33-year-old soberly put away a slew of Heinekens and concentrated on playing his music, the crowd seemed nave and collegiate by comparison. Many seem to have been pleased simply to have an audience for their various tricks with glowsticks.

That a DJ of such global stature as Digweed attracted only this fairly average crowd is indicative of the difficulties of DJ stardom. He may have flown here to promote his latest double mix album, Bedrock (and indeed, quite a few songs from the night found their way onto his playlist), but listening to the album is nowhere near as fun as hearing him live, even if it's a good recording. Perhaps what the night proved was that DJs--more than any other kind of musician, perhaps--are not suitable to export by compact disc. Lucky thing they can afford airplanes.