- Making the trek out to Ballarat yet again it was impossible to not be excited about another Hardware Universe party. There’s something about that castle [no, not its tackiness], about dancing far away from home outdoors in the freezing cold, that makes these events worth the trip.
For this edition, Hardware had enlarged the wooden plank dancefloor, and whilst there were no lasers, there were four screens full o’ Chroma visual goodness, and a foam/fake snow machine that sparkled like magic whenever turned on.
Steve Robbins was the first to get feet on the floor en masse when he dropped in his monster track ‘Addiction’. From then on the locals really threw down the gauntlet to the internationals, with the Teriyaki boys playing a dirty set breaking up hard as nails techno with psytrancey melodic craziness.
Monika Kruse was the first international to hit the main stage and took over from Dee Dee and Slack with effortless finesse. Slowing the tempo of the night down somewhat, she gradually turned up the heat and played out a well-structured set of funky ass techno, sometimes hard, sometimes nasty, sometimes familiar, always funky.
The Wetmusik boys hammered out a relentless set that at times seemed like it was about to blow the sound system, but luckily some engineers frantically twiddled their knobs and the techno continued hammering out across the castle ramparts.
Ben Cromack was given a rare opportunity to properly extol his talents in a primetime set, and I think he won some new fans with his aggressive, oh-so classy use of the mixer. This boy cuts up vinyl and uses fx with such poise and ability if you see him you’re guaranteed to catch yourself at least once gawking at his hands, Mills-esque, flitting busily over the EQs.
The DEA did away with funky techno and instead replaced it with their dark, menacing, brooding live techno. I always smile when I see the boys headbanging away behind the equipment, and there were a few punters doing the same thing as the crowd moshed beneath the stage.
Elsewhere there was tones of room to comfortably bust out to Charles Siegling, and with a funky yet hard start to his set, you couldn’t help but warm yourself up with his slammin’ techno. Breaking up his pounding grooves with some booty always got yelps of delight from the crowd, but it was a hard and oh so delicious track selection that won my heart – why more people other than its maker aren’t playing Undisputed Life (Technasia Remix 2) out remains a mystery to me.
Beatboxer extraordinaire Patrick Lindsey took the reins next and slowed it right down, starting with a very melodic vocal house bracket. But house became tech-house, which became techno, and eventually, with a few beatboxing bouts thrown in, the dancefloor was rocking along on a great journey with Lindsey. The man eventually played up until almost 6.30am, with the sun rising, the booty coming thick and fast, and Lindsey himself bouncing around at times more energetically than the crowd.
Richie Rich played a fantastic sunrise set that took techno into a more melodic realm somewhere near the doyen of trance, but with classics like ‘Jaguar’, it don’t matter what ya call it, anthems like that are in a genre unto their own.
The sun had risen on a spectacular Victorian morning, and it was back to the big smoke with a crateful of great memories in tow. Hardware Universe 2002 was dogged by intermittent sound problems, but the music and the atmosphere in that courtyard were simply magic, and easily overwhelmed any negatives of the night. HU2002 was definitely one of the better parties of recent times. Bring on the next Kryal adventure, and for all you tech-heads, bring on Hardware 19 with Adam Beyer and Joel Mull very soon!