Chuckie at Opera Atlanta Recap

It’s been over 2 years since Chuckie had last headlined Opera Nightclub, and the anticipation of his return to Atlanta had been building for weeks. Opera has always been an impressive venue, but a lot of things have changed since Chuckie last brought the Dirty Dutch to the Dirty South. With a combination of 28 speakers and subs, almost 70 LED lights, 14 CO2 nozzles that engulf the club with every blast and the largest LED wall in Atlanta, nothing really compares to a packed dance floor on a Friday night at Opera.

I had just arrived at Opera when I was told to grab my gear and head over to Chuckies hotel. I had been granted last minute access to film and photograph the infamous DJ and spend a short amount of time with him before his set later that night. We arrived at the hotel to find Chuckie in the lobby with his tour manager and Drummaboy, a multi-platinum award winning producer and rapper from Tennessee. We were running late and I had 30 seconds to grab a quick portrait and a video clip from both Chuckie and Drummaboy before we had to head to the car.

We walked out the front door towards the valet stand where the event promoter had parked his car. Chuckie started making his way towards a Maserati parked nearby, before looking back to see the rest of the group walking towards 2 trucks parked on the other side of the front driveway.

“Oh, I thought that was us”, he said, laughing as he walked over to us.

We arrived at Opera a few minutes later with a line going around the block and a crowd gathering around the VIP entrance. We parked in a side alley and made our way inside while a few folks that caught a glimpse of Chuckie yelled out his name. I thanked Chuckie for his time as we made our way to the booth and broke off to get back to working the crowd. The floor was packed and VIP was filling up fast as Opera resident Rimby kept up a perfect openers pace with a solid mixture of tech house, deep house and some of his personal elektro house tracks.

The music slowed a bit as Chuckie took over the decks and the crowd immediately sensed the change. With a massive 16 foot LED screen in front of and behind the DJ booth, the entire crowd was able to watch Chuckie and Rimby switch to the ambient light created by them. A “Chuckie” chant grew louder and louder until the DJ answered their call and unleashed the beginning of a 2 and half hour set of the best of the best of the last 8 years of dutch house and elektro house. Playing a solid mixture of his own tunes, unheard edits and remixes, and even a decent amount of trap, Chuckie never released the pressure on the crowd. When he wasn’t dropping bass he was on the mic, demanding more energy and getting a bigger response each and every time.

Before I knew it the lights were coming up and Chuckie was asking where the closest strip club could be found. There isn’t much you can say about a night where 3:30 sneaks up on you other then you obviously had a good time. The massive crowd chanted for one more song as Chuckie made his way out of the building, off to rip up the city for a few hours before hopping a plane to the next party.

Written By and Shot By: Jason Hensel

For photos go HERE.