VII: Time for Evolution

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Announcement from the VII Facebook Page

Time for evolution.

When we started VII the vision was to always be a collective that featured each member in equal measure. In truth it has mostly been about only five of us. We would say this has been due to our inability to properly fuse two very different worlds.

Both sides tried hard but in the end it didn’t quite gel in a few key areas and as such we are now parting ways with two dear friends Astrix & Freedom Fighters.

Astrix will still play Manchester on Feb 2nd but this will be the last show we do with him as a VII member.

The split is entirely amicable and we all remain good friends. So no, there’s no back story, no gossip, no drama – just a series of unfortunate circumstances that led to us loosing some fluidity and momentum. We want to take this opportunity to thank both Avi and Shahaf for their incredible music, passion and energy that they kindly contributed while in VII. Respect.

Hosting our own stage at Tomorrowland this year was an incredible moment. It was a moment that followed the equally amazing experience of having our own stage at EDC Las Vegas 2017 but one thing became apparent at these gigs and that was the fact that if we were to ever make line up changes to VII – we absolutely needed to find and bring in the best opening DJ we possibly could.

A scene setter, tone developer and story starter.
We were a line up exclusively made up of banging peak time music so asking any one of us to open meant that DJ having to compromise his sound. Within the team we agreed that if and when that time came – we needed a master craftsman at setting the tone, teasing people in, making them fall in love and preparing them to be driven.

In a recent meeting between Patterson, Askew, Atkinson and Tyas three names were discussed at great length for this role. It needed to be someone we had already worked with and someone we all knew had the right fit – as a person, artist, producer and of course DJ. They needed to fit the brand and be compatible to our work ethos. In the end, while much debate ensued – there was one name that got the unanimous vote.

Crew worldwide – please give a warm welcome to – Orkidea.

We have all toured with Tapio before and he is without doubt one of the coolest cats in the field. Put him behind the decks and he oozes class and has a deep rooted understanding of how to properly work a room. He is one of the best progressive DJs and producers in the world and we’re super excited to announce him as a new Shadow in VII (number 4).

Orkidea’s first appearance for us will be at VII Manchester on Feb 2nd and his first release for the label will come in the next Black Chapter that kicks off in early 2019.

The other new Shadow (number 7) we will announce in early January, but he is confirmed, he is an absolute headliner and his music is the very definition of optimum level peak time.

We believe these changes will enable us to present you with more music from more perspectives and of course more live shows. We are insanely excited to share everything with you but first let’s focus on Manchester…..where the line up goes a little something like this:

Astrix
Simon Patterson
Sean Tyas
John Askew
Will Atkinson
Alex Di Stefano
Orkidea

Tickets on sale on Wednesday 14th.

Register here: https://m.me/rongevents (click and send “7” in a message).

Credit: https://www.facebook.com/theviicrew/