DJs to the rescue: Montreal turntablers show up with vinyl for Questlove at Roots show

It was 8 p.m. on Saturday, and Jesse Dube-Smith was curled up, ready for a quiet night in front of a superhero movie.

But then, he got the signal. There was an emergency.

"Anyone in Montreal got a Serato control vinyl they can let a bro use tonight to save a party?" wrote legendary hip-hop drummer Questlove on social media.

Dube-Smith, a sound recordist and former DJ, paused his movie in favour of real-life heroics.

For anyone who doesn't know, a "control vinyl" allows a DJ to scratch and manipulate digital music with a physical record -- think of it as using a typewriter as a keyboard.

On a DJ's computer, all the music is loaded onto a software program that reads the timecode, similar to CDs and vinyl.

DJs like Questlove, Dube-Smith and others grew up scratching with actual records, using vinyl in conjunction with their computers.

• WATCH VIDEO above for a full explanation from the DJ

Dube-Smith had a couple lying around.

"I replied that I had them," he said.

Questlove, who was in town playing the Montreal Jazz Festival with The Roots, was booked to DJ as a surprise guest at an after party later that night.

Dube-Smith's phone lit up. It was the tour manager.

"I was told to come to the backstage area of the stage," he said. "My girlfriend and I switched gears and got ready to head out."

Dr. Strange would have to wait.

The Roots, also known as The Legendary Roots Crew, emerged out of Philadelphia in the late 1980s.

The group has created some of hip-hop's most seminal works, featuring Erykah Badu and Mos Def on their early breakthrough album Things Fall Apart, and fostering darker tones in later albums Game Theory and Rising Down – the crew has canonized itself in American music and culture.

They were scheduled in Montreal to bookend the Jazz Fest, but even with the group's storied legacy, Questlove was facing party peril.

Meanwhile, Mike De Leon was at a barbeque.

"My phone kept going off," he told CTV. "I got a text that he needed vinyl."

De Leon, who also goes by the name DJ Deleon, has been spinning in Montreal clubs for the better part of two decades most recently at The Farsides and Muzique.

Duty called. He grabbed his disks and went.

THE ARRIVAL

Fans had swarmed the Place des Festivals in preparation for the Roots' arrival. The band played at sundown.

"We get there right as the band starts," said Dube-Smith, "and I notice another guy with Serato control vinyl."

Dube-Smith says it wasn't long before a member of the Roots' team scooped them up and brought them backstage.

"I thought it was just dropping it off," said De Leon, who instead was handed one of two backstage passes (Dube-Smith got the other one).

He was also offered a complimentary bottle of water.

With that, the two hydrated heroes got backstage seats to an explosive end to the Jazz Fest.

The show killed, and the two DJs got a chance to avoid the packed crowd and watch from backstage.

"This was the cherry on the top," said Dube-Smith, speaking of what had already been an "amazing" festival.

De Leon did not go to the after party.

"I have a nine-month-old daughter at home, so you know what that's like," said De Leon with a laugh. 

HAPPENS ALL THE TIME

Missing a piece of equipment is something every performer has gone through.

"Every single DJ has gone through that," said De Leon. "Whether it be your power adapter for your computer, or you forgot your headphones or you forget your control vinyl or CDs because as you're leaving a gig, it's easy for you to misplace stuff."

De Leon was just happy that he could help.

"The DJ community has always helped each other out in terms of that," he said. "I think we all understand what it's like." 

-- with reporting from CTV News journalist Matt Gilmour.