The ingredients for November 2nd at The Met being a memorable night were all apparent: the controversy over Famous being hosted at one of the Valley’s most recent addition to the club scene and not Family, the showcase of Pioneer’s new acclaimed SVM-1000, and a lineup featuring two Dutch artists who are enjoying success all over the world for their massive club house sets. Unfortunately as it turned out, the night would be remembered for less estimable reasons.
Sander Kleinenberg sees the blending of sound and vision as the inevitable eventuality that club nights around the world will one day wonder how they ever managed without. It gives the DJ the freedom to add his or her own ‘mixable’ visuals to an evolving setlist, and has the potential to make each gig as individual as can be achieved to the club hosting for that night. Kleinenberg has certainly used this to great effect over recent years, with the visual elements of his Everybody club nights attracting huge numbers in the biggest clubs in the biggest cities.
Easily recognisible in his bright orange zip-up and flat cap, is the second and arguably more widely known Dutchman on the setlist by the name of Tom Holkenborg, but to a world of clubbers he’s known as Junkie XL. The creator of that legendary Elvis Presley remix masterpiece A Little Less Conversation, JXL has enjoyed not only success with his back catalogue of great club/breaks albums, but has remixed for possibly the widest variety of names, everyone from Coldplay and Scissor Sisters to (more worryingly) Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne. He’s been having a whale of a time since landing in Australia recently, and was ready to drop a massive night at The Met.
It hasn’t taken long for The Met to garner a clientele populated by guys that say, “I’ve exercised every muscle except the one inside my head”, and girls that say, “Under-dressed is best.” It was encouraging therefore to see two examples of the former who were wearing embarrassingly matching 80s slogans tees being turned away upon entering the club. I doubt they were turned away because of their attire, but sadly if they had been allowed in, they would have fitted in perfectly with many of their peers. It was almost immediately clear what kind of night the majority were hoping to have and as we approached the dancefloor and heard David Gueta’s Love Is Gone getting its ever predictable airing, the crowd’s expectations looked set to be met. Resident Pete Smithhad his sights fixed firmly on getting the dancefloor filled, and with the decidedly average club night staples of NYC Beat, Shake & Pop, Destination Unknown and a cringeworthy The Sweet Escape, he had mission accomplished.
As Mark James picked up where Pete Smith left off, taking the reins in catering to the largely tasteless crowd and being almost indistinguishable from his predecessor, a break from the sleaze being displayed on the dancefloor by much of the Everlast army was needed. If you can find a secluded booth downstairs at The Met, it’s always a pleasure to sit and enjoy the pseudo-Medieval/Renaissance style woodwork, soft crimson lighting and Persian-inspired decor peppered with Hindu imagery. Not for long however, as downstairs was beginning to sound suspiciously akin to the main floor, which was being exposed to a nice club mix of Chemical Brothers’ Do It Again. The night was all about Sander Kleinenberg however, and what he would do with the SVM-1000. He was primed and ready to shift it into a higher gear.
Unfortunately it stalled soon after, for barely had Kleinenberg opened his set, that it became apparent something was wrong. The floor was then met with silence as The Met’s mighty sound system was brought to its knees, the impressive visuals disappeared, everything went dead and along with it, the vibe. Thankfully the momentum was lost only momentarily as Kleinenberg recovered with the hammeringDeadmau5 edit of Harder Better Faster Stronger. The promise that Daft Punkdemonstrated was short-lived though, as a lacklustre set was only studded here and there with some nice moments in the proceedings, such as an unheard of mash-up between a pumping club bass and the sound of James Lavelle’s vocal work on Hold My Hand, the latest single from Unkle. To be taken surprise by Samuel L Jackson screaming “English mother fucker, do you speak it!?” whilst the speakers doled out suppressing house beats was also a highlight.
This is not to say that once the dancefloor had been filled prior to Kleinenberg, that it didn’t stay filled after he began. This is to say that when a DJ lowers their standards to gratify an audience who can’t see past the mainstream of what’s being played in clubs around the world, the rest of us suffer for it. Aside from the aforementioned, Kleinenberg dropped some nice gems in his set, such as Angello Ingrosso’s reworking of Hard Fi, making Suburban Knights sound good. Also nice to hear Les Djinns make an appearance in a set, but the inclusion of some nice gems does not a euphoric night of spectacular house make.
So did the advanced technology of the SVM-1000 give us perfectly synchronised visuals that complimented the music with a stunning array of mind-warping imagery? Sadly not, but it did display on the 2×6 screens the lyrics to whatever tune we were listening to at the time, and that’s something. For all of the build-up that this new system of VJing had generated, it was as impressive as Kleinenberg’s set. When used to full capacity, it can be an awesome sight to behold, as something that has been recorded mere minutes before a set can be incorporated into the visuals, then tweaked and messed with to the DJ’s liking. But the sight of the words Harder Better Faster Stronger, Are your drugs healing?, or Smack My Bitch Up being stylishly flashed up on screen while the song is being mixed into the set, and the bass having its own rhythmic visual pulsing in time to it, is not enough to make the experience any more enjoyable. If anything, it only helps in making the set seem somewhat less spontaneous, and the tracklist a little more predetermined. It does allow for a visual show approaching what can be seen at an outdoor festival to feature in a smaller, city centre club, but when the effort isn’t put into creating outstanding visuals in the first place, it all seems a little wasted.
After a two hour set it was time for Kleinenberg to make way for the always up for it Junkie XL. Not content with giving the crowd any time to recover, his fellow countryman’s equipment was cleared from the stage and replaced with what may in the near future be deemed the more ‘traditional’ Powerbook and Moog Voyager Stage setup. JXL opened with Black Knight blaring out Kick Up The Volume (Play It Loud), which said it all and soon had the crowd back on their feet and pounding the floor. JXL kept the tempo up with a quick feature of his latest single Fuck More, which could have lasted longer than it did, but when it led into a beautiful mash up between Enjoy The Silence and the Moby classic Go, all other thoughts went out the window and this reviewer was rapt. The sublime vocals of David Gahan blending with a flawless track like Go that had been given the JXL treatment should have defined the sound of his set, if his set hadn’t have proceeded to descend into the second pander-to-the-crowd of the night.
We were treated to the title track from last year’s Today album, the sound system doing justice to the hard house beating that JXL dealt it, but it seemed the crowd were beginning to dwindle. The sense that they were merely occupying the dancefloor rather than making it their own became apparent on a number of occasions not only to this reviewer but to JXL himself. Putting everything into the set was not enough it seemed, and only when he had to stand on his own table and thrash about did he remedy the crowd’s attitude and get them back into the tunes. This may have been the reason for the over abundance of build ups that dominated the set; after releasing a blazing version of his remix of Angels on the crowd and getting little response, all JXL could do was shake his head and go back into another build up.
Junkie XL has a knack for seeming bigger than most of the clubs he plays in, and this was certainly the case for The Met. He had his work cut out for him on Friday night, battling to repeatedly coax the crowd into action after almost every track he played, and the crowd he did get deserved to be bigger and more enthusiastic. Although when you have a crowd made up of guys and girls more concerned with texting each other or how nigh their hair is, then you can’t expect to get a crowd worthy of a Junkie XL set.
Famous at Brisbane is probably going to be more memorable for Sander Kleinenberg than it will be for anyone who heard him play however. It will be the infamous night he’ll always remember as the one when all of his CDs and DVDs were stolen. In a cruel but definitive way the theft topped off perfectly the disappointment that is often generated when looking at the people who frequent The Met. It seems that some were not merely content with listening to a DJ’s material, but felt they had to rob him of it, not only thoroughly ruining the night for him, but for anyone he was to play to in the near future. Let’s hope he doesn’t hold it against the rest of us in the distant future.
