For the past two years, the Fringe festival – along with venues all over the country – didn’t allow dancing, due to COVID restrictions, so how hungry was the crowd at Saturday’s Hot Dub Time Machine? In a return to the Fringe as a 12-year celebration of the where he debuted the concept that’s taken him around the world, DJ ‘Hot Dub’ Tom Loud treated Fringe-goers to two hours of snipped and mashed songs in a discography lesson of the decades, and he had the massive crowd of all ages in the open-air Fantail fist-pumping and jumping, swinging and singing, as music brought them all together. 

Beginning in 1962 and moving chronologically through to today, the songs lean toward the iconic (1991, for instance, had to be ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’) so there’s little in the way of surprises in the 2-hour set. But this is the kind of show people go to because they absolutely want to hear the songs they know the words to, they want to let go with their friends and hundreds of others in a unifying thrust of reliving their past – and their parents’ and grandparents’ past, which will always somehow and inevitably leak into the younger generations’ soundtracks. It’s worth noting that the show caters to all ages and abilities, with stand-seating for those who’d rather not dance.

Backed by a huge screen of live concert footage or music video, the songs are as much a visual reminder of the times as they are an audio, so it’ll be interesting to see what the production will do with it when Hot Dub Rave Machine takes over the Fantail for Fringe’s closing weekend. If dancing for the full session is not your thing, there are plenty of places to sit and recuperate in the stands at the back of the dance floor. My suggestion? Grab a friend, or five, and check it out if you’re after an indulgent night of collective dancing and all-out revelry.