Factory 93 sold out both nights under the Sixth Street Bridge: ANOTR’s open-air “Withness” show on Friday, October 30, then Brunello’s Mellow Circus indoors on a rainy Halloween, with an extra hour courtesy of daylight saving time.
Factory 93 sold out both nights under the Sixth Street Bridge: ANOTR’s open-air “Withness” show on Friday, October 30, then Brunello’s Mellow Circus indoors on a rainy Halloween, with an extra hour courtesy of daylight saving time.Written by Eric B. Thornton
Ace*Mission Studios sits right under the Sixth Street Viaduct in Boyle Heights, a former beverage distribution hub that now runs as production soundstages, and it has had a busy year. Skyline Festival moved in at the end of February, Time Warp makes its Los Angeles debut here later this month, and on the last weekend of October, Factory 93 used the same lot for two parties that couldn’t have looked less alike on paper.
When I previewed the weekend, I called it same venue, two totally different vibes: sunshine on Friday, the carnival after dark on Saturday. Both nights sold out. The weather, though, had its own plans for Halloween.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30: ANOTR
ANOTR, the Amsterdam duo of Jesse van der Heijden and Oguzhan Guney, were billed for an open-air “Withness” show under the bridge from 6 p.m. to midnight, and it sold out, with Miami’s Jesse Perez, the man behind Mr. Nice Guy Records, and LA’s own Xica Soul on the support bill.
If you were at Skyline, you knew the spot. ANOTR played in the same place under the bridge where Skyline set up its main stage, the East Side stage, with the viaduct right there beside it. There were a lot of people that night, and coming in, there was a line.
I was hoping they’d bring the light-ball setup from their London show. They didn’t. The big stage carried just the ANOTR name and logo, and that was alright. It was still a fun night.
In the preview I wrote that their sets tend to swing between bright, happy records and tracks that go hard, and that push and pull is what keeps a crowd moving for hours. The show landed about two weeks after “Out Of My Head,” the single built on a disco-funk guitar riff that came out in mid-October on their own No Art label, and it joins “Relax My Eyes” and “How You Feel” in a catalog of crowd favorites.
Then there’s the big one. “Talk to You,” their collaboration with 54 Ultra, came out on No Art in March, climbed all the way to No. 3 on the UK’s Official Singles Chart and ended up on their album “Withness” in June. ANOTR saved it for the very end. They stopped the previous song and gave “Talk to You” a longer, more elaborate intro, with the crowd anticipating it the whole way before the song finally started. Everyone was dancing.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31: BRUNELLO’S MELLOW CIRCUS
Halloween night’s party was set indoors, in Mission 4, one of the spaces inside the complex, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Like Friday, it sold out. Paris producer Bambounou and Jax Carter rounded out the bill.
It had been raining hard since late afternoon, and it was already dark by then. Forecasters had warned for days that this could be L.A.’s first wet Halloween since 2014, and Saturday delivered.
I caught Brunello in the Warehouse at Portola in September, where his grooves were literally hypnotic. Mellow Circus is both the label he launched in 2023 and the world he’s built around his music, and back in February, Relentless Beats reported he was focused on growing Mellow Circus into a full series of live events. “It’s not a traditional circus,” he told the outlet. By September he had taken the concept open-air at The Ruins at Knockdown Center in Queens. Saturday was the Los Angeles version.
The room was another Skyline callback. Skyline ran four stages this year, and only one of them was indoors. That’s the stage Brunello played, right across from the spot where ANOTR had been the night before. Nobody went overboard with the decor: no fancy build, mostly curtains. The one flourish hung overhead, an LED display shaped something like a disco ball, cycling through artistic, cartoon-style faces in the same spirit as the faces on Brunello’s poster.
“It’s not a traditional circus.”
Brunello, to Relentless Beats
It felt like an underground rave, just a chill one. The show was easygoing and nice, everyone was in costume, and the room was packed. Brunello’s set was pretty hypnotic, just like Portola.
Halloween even threw in a bonus. Daylight saving time ended at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, when the clocks fell back to 1 a.m., so the night’s 1 o’clock hour happened twice. For a party billed until 2 a.m., that meant one extra hour on the dance floor.
It felt like an underground rave, just a chill one.
SEE YOU UNDER THE BRIDGE
One promoter, one lot, two very different bills back to back: a big open-air night that saved its biggest song for last, then a hypnotic indoor circus in the Halloween rain. Same lot, two sellouts.
The bridge isn’t going quiet, either. Time Warp makes its Los Angeles debut inside the Ace Warehouses at Ace*Mission on November 27 and 28, produced with Insomniac. See you under the bridge.
ANOTR “Withness,” Friday, October 30, and Factory 93 presents Brunello’s Mellow Circus, Saturday, October 31, Ace*Mission Studios, Los Angeles. Upcoming Factory 93 shows at thefactory93.com.
CONNECT WITH
ANOTR: Instagram | SoundCloud
Brunello: Instagram | Beatport
Factory 93: Website
Ace*Mission Studios: Website