INTERVIEWS MAN POWER

JONATHAN COLL TALKS TO DJ, PRODUCER AND ALL-ROUND CREATIVE GEOFF KIRKWOOD ABOUT HIS DISTINGUISHED CAREER, HIS ROLE OF CONSULTANT MUSIC CURATOR FOR NOVUM FESTIVAL AND GIVING

SOMETHING BACK TO HIS COMMUNITY IMAGE BY AMELIA READ

The name Man Power has been synonymous with the North East clubbing scene for almost a decade. Initially as a DJ, producer and latterly as an all-round creative, Geoff Kirkwood, the Clark Kent to Man Power’s Superman, is entering the second act of a distinguished career. The break enforced by the Covid lockdowns brought a period of introspection and a renewed focus on collaboration and giving back to his local community. I caught up with him to discuss the projects that have reinvigorated his love for music.

“Around the time of the lockdown I found that I was really struggling to do anything that didn’t have some sort of meaning or wider purpose to it.” He explains. “When I first started the Man Power project there was a lot of newness behind it. The first ten years have been me living out my dreams, and then you start to think about what comes next. Having this break let me realise I was doing stuff I wasn’t interested in, things that were meaningless, so I’ve jettisoned that. Community is a big thing to me. Now I’m not really playing to customers, but to peers, people that think and feel the same as me.”

This fresh look at the Newcastle club scene would lead to night-long DJ sets in bars along the North Shields Fish Quay, as well as b2b sets with some of dance music’s finest under the Are