- If you thought big dance parties didn’t happen anymore in Melbourne after last year’s infamous shrinking Gatecrasher, think again.
Melbourne institution Two Tribes was back for another Labour Day Sunday and word on the street was that the event had presold no less than 17,000 tickets.
There weren’t many of them there as I arrived to the sounds of Lee Coombs, DJing from the back of a Red Bull Humvee underneath the hot sun. The heat wasn’t so conducive to dancing, but his breakbeat was a nice enough way to laze through a Sunday dusk! Others took to the foam pit with great enthusiasm.
As punters kept trickling in the techno arena opened and from the outset I was bloody impressed. The dancefloor was made up of what seemed like pre-talced planks, and between intermittent fights in the Everlast boxing ring, I skated around merrily on certainly the finest dancefloor I’ve ever danced on at a large-scale event.
The huge volume of presales showed in the Hardware arena, with the sound, lighting, décor, and visuals all betraying a no-expense-spared budget extending right down to the postcard sized timetable and map available for nix on entry. With lots of room on the dancefloor, the sound at a perfect volume and clarity, and Jeff Tyler and Scott Finemore playing some awesome techno, this had the makings of a special, special night.
Eyeing off the laser rig with great expectation, I proceeded to get nice and sweaty courtesy of a tough, tribal set of sunset techno. At times I would’ve called it straight-up progressive, but at others it was nothing but chunky tech. And there were some hits chucked in for good measure – even the electro-flavoured [and personal fave] ‘Frank Sinatra’ got a guernsey.
Well done boys, you really kickstarted my night just right!
Phonk De Sonique were up next and I wanted to see what these boys could do, having never heard them before. I really dug the way they fused jazz with tech – what an original concept! Very nice. Similarly nice, but tougher, was Nick Demkiw, whose great set I had to force myself to begrudgingly leave to check out the Future arena.
Sean Quinn was playing some dark prog stuff, but as Goldie limbered up [15 minutes late], it was interesting to see the dnb diehards getting fired up, and the progressive fans not sure how to handle the change in pace!
Goldie and Rage were fanbloodytastic. I haven’t been so excited about drumnbass since Roni Size and MC Dynamite last year. Rage had the rhymes, and Goldie had a rather interesting track selection – lots of trancey chord breaks, perhaps to appease the Future crowd?
Meanwhile a world away in the Vodafone arena, Gavin Keitel was finishing off to make way for Highland. The lighting in here, as with Future, was gorgeous, lavish. And the progressive was rather lush, too!
I didn’t know what to expect with Highland, but the end result was very reminiscent of Way Out West, complete with female vocalist draping herself coyly all over the stage.
The sound was getting a little loud now, and I knew that back in the techno arena it would be quite painful, as the level-busting Wet boys took to the decks. A shame, the system had really sounded superb in the evening. Still, blaring levels or not, the Wet boys were entertaining the masses with their relentless techno.
After the DEA, the Teriyaki team were sent in to bat and played another brilliant set, in fact, possibly the best set I’ve ever heard from them. It was a lot tighter technically than their Hardware Universe outing, but gave nothing away in its fury. Tough, tough techno, the stuff you can’t resist dancing to. Mmm-mmm!
The pace of the night was to make a significant change, however, as a familiar face limbered up behind the decks. The meek-looking man with a crate full of DA SHIT. The king of Detroit, the Innovator, the one and only Jeff Mills.
Oh lordy.
The next three hours were spent dancing, cheering, moshing, and simply standing there gawking at the master.
I implore someone, somewhere to start a night with an oldskool Detroit techno music policy, because it’s simply not enough waiting for one of these guys to come out!
Jeff played a _truckload_ of Detroit stylee, with a few newer hits checked in. His hands moved faster than Bruce Lee over the EQs, and each subtle moment of eye contact with the crowd was…orgasmic.
What an experience. Sure, we’ve all heard ‘The Bells’ and ‘Jaguar’ and all the other hits of Robert Hood and Derrick May and the rest…but when you hear them played by Jeff Mills, in a warehouse – words cannot describe what that emotes in me.
Hyperbole aside, watching Mills at work on the big screen an inspired touch, and the lasers were fantastic. They seemed finer than usual, more precise and complex. The technology keeps on improving, and when a party gets a budget behind it, the lighting boys really go to town!
A stage jumper and an over-anxious Honeysmack meant Mills walked off instead of playing his cued encore, which put a dampener on the night, but in the end, it was almost 4 hours of power from the Innovator, and I loved every second of it.
Honeysmack’s energetic live set was great fun to listen to, but unlike the rest of the warehouse I was well and truly spent. Jeff Mills had ravaged me, and it was home time.
Two Tribes silenced the skeptics that said Gatecrasher would be the last event attempted on that scale. Two Tribes was again a huge success and you can bet it’ll be back next Labour Day weekend.
As for Jeff Mills and all the other internationals – they’re welcome back whenever they want! Melbourne’s love affair with Mills continued. The boy seems to like us…I look forward to him again wowing my mind and destroying my body shortly.