- Hardware once again took Melbourne over the Westgate for a multi-arena feast of electronic music. It was Easter Thursday, and I was all set to escape the working week. I’d been useless at the office all day, with only one thing on my mind: it was time for Hardware 19.
As I arrived, the first DJs were playing to near-empty dancefloors. Nick Demkiw was playing some downtempo minimal stuff in the main arena, but it was the melodic progressive of Hypnose that grabbed my attention first up.
The Teriyaki boys took Demkiw’s slow finish and gradually built up their set into rockin’ funky techno. They teased us with a slower remix of ‘I Love Techno’ before unleashing favourites of that ilk upon a growing audience. A well-structured effort from these boys with a few of their trademark harder, nastier surprises thrown in. They have been on top form at the big events this year and hopefully that will translate into success for Teriyaki’s eighth iteration, opening this Thursday at Billboard.
Ben Cromack was to have played immediately before Beyer but was swapped with Wetmusik at the last minute. Dancing to Dee Dee and Slack I was suddenly arrested by some aggressive cutting up of the vinyl. I knew that when I looked up, I’d see Cromack behind the decks. He cut and chopped and sliced and diced, a trademark Cromack effort met with riotous cheering from the appreciative crowd.
Dropping tracks like DJ Deeon’s ‘Shake Whatcha Momma Gave Ya’ got the crowd dancing even more joyously, but it struck me that while this was vintage Cromack, it was, well…vintage Cromack. The true genius of this man is to be seen every Friday at Fokus, where he’s more adventurous, more aggressive. He seems to get a bit nervous at the big events, and although he wows the crowd, in his Fokus residency he’s simply jaw-droppingly unbelievable.
Wetmusik started funky, before pitching it up, maxing out the levels, and hammering it out. All in all though, it was a groovier set from Tell and Digby than they’ve being playing of late. The hard stuff was interspersed with dollops of funk – or perhaps the other way around!
Over in the Bass Inc room the drumnbass beats of Rol-N were being lapped up by a small but energetic dancefloor. His set encompassed many different dnb sounds, starting out quite melodic and downbeat, working through some big tune vocal numbers, and finishing off with some pounding bassline filthy drumnbass. Yum!
But back in the main arena, it was time to get Swedish, as the star of the show Adam Beyer took control.
And while there was some tasty European techno served, it was the diversity of Beyer’s set that surprised me immensely. There were so many different styles featured! Beyer switched genres constantly, rarely content to stick to one sound for more than a couple of tracks. There was tech-house, acid techno, hard as nails sheeit, even some trancey interludes. Overall, there was a lot of older stuff, and of course a few favourites – but not the sort of thing I was expecting, for example, a couple of tracks off Jeff Mills’ ‘Waveform Transmission’.
Joel Mull and Peter Benisch would start on the uberminimal tip, playing breaky, proggy stuff before taking their live performance into the realm of techno. This was a fantastic set, and although I was hanging for some of the banging stuff Beyer had so often teased us with, this duo was eminently listenable.
And when, after a hint of electro, they started dropping some harder techno, I was enraptured with the rest of the crowd.
Richie Rich started off nice and chunky before relaxing the tempo and techno and playing out a slow proggy set. The obligatory favourites were thrown down, ‘Papua New Guinea’ as ever a highlight, and Richie gradually wound the tempo back up to finish with ‘Born Slippy’.
The return of banging tunes to the sound system heralded the start of a fantastic morning serving of techno courtesy of Damian Laird. Funky sounds was the first order of business, with a side serving of ‘Sunglasses at Night’ to boot!
I left with ears ringing from the speaker stacks and eyes still mesmerised by a fantastic laser setup. The Good Friday morning was a dreary one, but driving back over the Westgate it didn’t dampen my spirits: the techno had been fantastic, and the weekend was only just beginning!