Salmonella Dub @ The Hi Fi, Brisbane (26/06/2009)

On a rainy night in Brisbane, the Hi Fi were playing host to two of New Zealand’s best exports, one who’s been doing the live circuit on both sides of the Tasman for well over a decade, and the other who was simply doing a gig for a $50 bar tab a few short years ago.

Thankfully the rain hadn’t dampened anyone’s enthusiasm for coming out and the queue was well stocked with soaked music fans. Once we were finally in, The Mighty Asterix was showing off his enthusiasm for reggae and lyrical dexterity with some nicely chilled out beats that encouraged people to make their way from the bar to the floor and sway along with him. The room really got warmed up as Ladi6 took to the stage alongside able accomplice DJ Parks.

The Queen of NZ hip hop has been touring with some of the best Kiwi and international artists for years, and finally, with the release of her debut album Time Is Not Much the fans have something they can truly get their teeth into when not seeing her live. Her attitude and flair on stage all lent itself to her being much bigger in the future; she has a wonderful mastery over her lyrics, and with DJ Parks backing her up with the beats, it’s a finely crafted performance that you can’t help but groove to. The fans cheered when she brought out Call You Out, a particular favourite from the album, and her vocal contribution to the Fat Freddy’s Drop wunderkind track Roady went down with style.

But it was new 12” Go Get It that really hit pay dirt. This bouncy little 2-Step track has a fantastic big band rhythm section and with Ladi 6’s sultry vocals all over it, it’s a smoking release that will undoubtedly be a popular choice when included in all of her future tours.

In the interim between Ladi 6’s fantastic appearance and the main act for the night, Asterix helped drop some drum n bass with the help of Paddy Free from Pitch Black to get people moving, including the odd hint of who was up next here and there. Soon enough the kiwi dub royalty Salmonella Dub took up their places and kicked off the night with an effects-driven reworking of Dub Survivors. Almost instantly the smell of something illegal was in the air, and the mood was set.

After a percussion-driven jam that ebbed and flowed with the skill of seasoned dubsters,Push On Thu was met with enthusiastic recognition. Love Sunshine and Happiness too was a popular choice, the chilled summer tune being infused this time around with a more DnB vibe than the mellow original. Their tour of the remix EP Freak Local was obviously allowing the band the freedom to play around with some older tunes.

For the most part this worked, but a divergence from the usual way some of the tracks were played had an element of roughness to them, as though alternative versions of tracks hadn’t been as ingrained as the studio versions. Having said that, the performance of title track Freak Local was played with an animated funky vigour that spread throughout the band and into the crowd.

Another DnB jam was called for and the band let loose with some towering improvisations, Dave on the drums really working the toms and getting as much funk out the jam as possible, and Mark slapping the bass with relish. The floor was bouncing and jiving (mostly) in time and having a lot of the fun with this fresh approach to Sal Dub’s sound.

The band slipped back into a on older favourite Slip n Slide, and finished with a relaxed and soulful dub sound that allowed everyone to take a deep breath and end the night in a chilled mood. The band benefited greatly from Asterix’s inclusion, his enthusiasm and authoritative Rasta vocals brought up each track he came out for and encouraged the people to get into it. It was a strange gig in the sense that almost everything played was a divergence from the typical Salmonella Dub sound, but for a band that in the past have been accused of not being fresh, can’t be a bad thing.

Outrage feat. The Bloody Beetroots @ Family, Brisbane (25/06/2009)

It was April of this year that saw Arcade Creative bring Sinden & Fake Blood to the Empire, the word of the night being sweat. They ripped up the place and brought everyone on a hectic journey through garage, electro and some glorious dubstep. After Thursday night at the Family, that night in April now seems about as hardcore as adopting a kitten. Arcade Creative had this time snagged The Bloody Beetroots, and those in attendance couldn’t so much be described as revelers but casualties of war.

As we ticked over into the break of Friday, the crowd welcomed Ajax with open arms. Getting stuck into his set from the get go, the grinding synth was working overtime and devastating the crowd with a dirty bass that almost shook the skin off your back. Ajax cuts an unassuming figure behind the decks, which made his hard house all the more impressive as he let the fast and loud beats speak for themselves. His buildups were tuned entirely to the crowd reaction and they responded in kind with some perfectly timed bouncing.

The admirable job the security were doing of clearing out the people who couldn’t handle the pace was getting increasingly difficult as the masses crowded in at the back to catch the start of the Beetroots, pulverising those at the front who had no choice but to spill out onto the sides of the stage. The crowd had turned into a voracious stockpile of energy and were chewing their own faces off in anticipation, and Ajax hadn’t even finished yet. So when he did end his set on a very considerable high, there was an explosion of hysteria, but they barely had time to applaud him off before they were screaming for the oncoming Italian duo, who were already holding up their kit bags in triumph.

Luckily, security were more on top of things by the time the Beetroots took to the stage, and were hauling out shattered victims of the packed room by the bucketload with well-practised regularity. The Family has never been so crammed on a Saturday night, so it was remarkable to remember that this was a Thursday. Even if the dancefloor hadn’t been reduced to make way for a floor-level stage in place of the enclosed booth, the building would still have been busting at the seams to contain the masses at this sold out pandemonium.

The Bloody Beetroots ripped the Family a new one, rolling the purest of trance, house, techno and electronica all up in a ball of voracious hardcore. They taught the insatiable gathering of lunatics really what it meant to go insane, how to pound the dancefloor and each other with their bodies and how to disregard all pretense of personal safety and let the music take you to the asylum. The Family isn’t going to witness a night like this for quite a while to come, the building is probably still a bit shaken up about what it had to play host to.

The rhythmical hardcore of the electronica buzzed with the lethal ferocity of Leatherface with a chainsaw and even when a relative breather was bestowed upon the crowd in the form of the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage, it was given a good going over and bent to the will of the Bloody Beetroots. Having said that, come 2AM things had calmed somewhat to a mere deafening roar and some 2-Step goodness was unleashed, the drilling snare cutting through the cloud from the smoke machine like a knife through butter.

As the 2-Step built once again into the driving techno the crowd knew and loved, we were wondering how much more the duo had left to give. We were soon put in no doubt that there was a lot more gas left in the tank. Tommy Tea crawled under the table to get at the flailing hands of the crowd and they turned into a ravenous horde, diving for him, wanting to grab a hold of just some of that insane genius. It was then that they let loose their most recognisable tune Cornelius, and only from the Bloody Beetroots could you catch the combination of atmospheric Gregorian chants with pulsating hard house and a mass of seething revelers screaming “Hey!’ over and over.

The Bloody Beetroots have been described as the product of a grisly union betweenThe Misfits and Daft Punk, so it was no surprise then that the latter were given some exposure in the form of One More Time. Only, where this track is one of the more upbeat and merry moments on Discovery, the Beetroots subverted and corrupted it with a searing intensity that ripped through the crowd and made the sweat pour once more.

They built upon that new found hysteria brought about by the use of Daft Punk by bringing out their relatively recent collaboration with Steve Aoki, the impeccably unyielding track Warp. There had been an initial fear that coming out so strong and pummeling the crowd with such staggering brutality would have led them to climax too early, but when Warp peaked, the crowd peaked, and quite simply blew the lid off the Family. The full capacity of the venue moved as one throng, as one of the best tracks to come out of the year so far tore through everyone equally, whether they were on the floor, on the balconies, or at the bar.

The crowd truly went ballistic and were left in a worn out trance until the Beetroots came out and finished them all off with a comparably mellow encore, giving out another little touch of Cornelius, but before it went back into a proper frenzy, they ended the night with an appropriately hyperactive dissemination of the 50s classic Shout. By 3AM I had to leave Danny T to work his techy breaks magic on the crowd; I was spent, and unlike most of the young’uns here, I had work in the morning.

This night will be remembered by those in attendance as resembling more of a warzone than a dancefloor. The shark pit that was the main floor was at every moment throughout the set, a rampaging multitude of crazed fans that lapped up the refreshingly hardcore beats the boys were masterly and unrelentingly dealing out. This gig had Beetroots, but if it had have been any more brutal, there really would have been blood.

Saturdays @ Family pres. Kid Kenobi & MC Shureshock, Brisbane (20/06/209)

There are two different types of hangovers; the first is defined by a solid kick to the face by an imaginary demon as soon as one of your eyes blearily cracks open and before it’s even focused on anything, your head has imploded and your brain is seeping out your nose.

The second is more deceptive and begins without any hint of pain at all. You wake up and feel wonderful, you get up and it’s a beautiful Sunday morning, the trees are singing and the birds are swaying. Then, just when you begin to think about cooking a mammoth fry up, something crawls into your head, defecates all over your mind before festering in your stomach for the rest of the day.

I only mention this to excuse myself from my fragmented memory of the night before; and to explain that the intended reviewer for the night bailed on us and left it up to a pisshead to pick up the pieces of what turned out to be a (no doubt) awesome night.

After stamping their authority in Brisbane when they last visited, the powerhouse duo ofKid Kenobi & MC Shureshock were back in the Family for another round of speaker-blowing tunes. The glass booth had been abandoned for the night and a stage was produced up front in the main room. Prior to the main event, Jason Morely was making the new stage his own with a 3 CDJ set up and a turntable being used as nothing more than a shelf for the next few CDs he was lining up, alas. By 11PM the main room was a hive of well turned-out bodies making their mark upon the dancefloor.

The Family always knows how to put on an impressive light show and the massive expanse of bulbs decked out against the back wall added a thoroughly disco feel to proceedings, even if what was stomping through the speakers was greatness of the more techy variety. What drew me away from all the pretty lights fanning out across the main floor, was an alarmingly unexpected display of what I like to call CockArt. An artist by the name of Pricasso had set up a little studio in the members area and was showing off the artistic flair of his own member, painting surprisingly good portraits of those willing to sit and stare at his tool of the trade for half an hour.

As mesmerising as watching a man paint with his penis was, when Kenobi and Shureshock came out, all attention turned to the stage. They came out strong, with Shureshock getting straight into and geeing the crowd up for a night of hard beats and heavy bass declaring that “tonight, this is your family!” Fending off bugged-eyed, teeth-grindingly enthusiastic fans who took to the stage, his performance was professional and did the trick in keeping energy levels in the room on a constant high.

The two have been working together for the past few years and they bounce off each other nicely, with Shureshock’s explosive outbursts timed to perfection but never overpowering the beats being thrown out by Kenobi. Some of his moves left a little to be desired, but nonetheless it was entertaining to see him almost poke some of the frontrowers’ eyes out with a pelvic thrust or two. The set itself (from what my post-hangover head could recollect) started off with the nicely accessible dance to ease people into a night that got harder and faster as it went on. One particular highlight of the night had everyone gleefully signing along to the massive Justice vs. Simian trackWe Are Your Friends.

Kenobi’s mastery of his set up and the tracklist he had fun playing around with meant the night went off with maximum amounts of energy and very little let up. The two make a great team and with their powers combined made for a great night, it would have been so much more memorable if I hadn’t been off the clock and making up for a week’s worth of non-drinking in one night.

The Presets @ The Riverstage, Brisbane 07/06/2009

You’d have to have been living under a rock (or at least have been overseas) for the past few years not to have noticed how meteoric the rise of The Presets has been. From playing to crowds in the tens a few years ago to selling out stadiums and arenas is no small feat. Sydney duo Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes have not only stamped their inimitable mark on the Australian dance scene, they’ve taken their sound around the rest of the world. On Sunday night, at the very end of their successful campaign across the globe, they were sharing the end of their adventure with Brisbane.

Sadly, due to Riverstage time and noise constraints, no gig ever goes for as long as it should, or is as loud as it could be. Despite this, the crowd were treated to more than ample support from Van She and Architecture in Helsinki. It wasn’t until the epic synth fanfare announced the arrival of the main act that almost the whole hill shook with applause and excitement. The welcoming roars from the crowd changed pitch to screams when the fanfare melded into Talk Like That. Kim on the drums really amplified the bass that shook the ground and kicked the set off with an infectious beat to the third single from Apocalypso. Five minutes in and they had everyone hooked, and following up with Yippiyo-Ay kept the crowd moving. Opening their shows with these two tracks has been a tried and tested formula for getting the best out of the crowd early on, and tonight was no different.

The Presets don’t just seem to have the monopoly on the Australian dance scene, they also seem to have some of the most fanatic fans. When seeking a good vantage point it was at times difficult to move without stepping on a pint-sized reveller, their too-tight jeans flailing in excitement at not having school on Monday. They just seemed to keep coming, threading their way through the static fans as they maniacally wheeled their way down to the stage. At particularly acute high points during the set, the front of the stage was nothing but a sea of power-grabbing, pointing, flapping, maddened jazz hands. Obviously seeing some of the crazed looks in fans’ eyes, even Julian had to comment, “don’t get too nuts down the front.”

As for the rest of us, we were too busy enjoying A New Sky to pay much attention to the unnervingly young specimens running around. To give the finale a fuller effect later, the rhythm was taken down a notch or two with earlier release, Girl and the Sea. It would be wise at this point to give special mention to the lighting, as the projections on-screen and otherwise were timed to perfection, no more so than when Kim got on the xylophone for a beautiful rendition of Aeons. The lights coursing through the on-stage rods that were scattered about, burst out with aurora borealis luminescence and added a depth and beauty to the music that would have been lost without such illumination.

If the seething mass of fans at the front didn’t know what to do with themselves during this relatively down tempo interlude of chilled out electronica, they were back on track when If I Know You kicked off. Are You The One kept the energy levels up, especially with the particularly effective climax to the track’s build up knocking the first couple of rows over with its reverb, while Together had even the older fans (us mid to late twentysomethings) towards the back moving and doing some pretty exhausting head bopping. This Boy’s In Love went out to all the fans who’d seen The Presets at Ric’s five years ago (“all twenty of you”), and as the track made the crowd go crazy (all couple of thousand of them), it was interesting to think what it must have sounded like five years ago. The Presets have such a stadium sound that it is almost impossible to imagine what venue, other than a few thousand capacity arena, they would otherwise be comfortable playing to.

This Boy’s In Love is a perfect example of that sound, with a leading piano, some epic synths and the soaring vocals easily taking in a crowd of thousands and keeping them dancing. The track has now become a finale trio that has been tried and tested at Presets gigs, and so the boys finished with ­_Kicking and Screaming_ and the ridiculously good My People. The latter is arguably the best track on their acclaimed album Apocalypso; it fits its anthem status very well, as the bass throbs, the industrial electronica pummels the eardrums, and the forthright lyrics carry everyone along on a track that just gets better the bigger the venue.

Then, it was time at the hideously overpriced drinks tent, and the boys were backstage for their obligatory pre-encore disappearance. When they came back out, a nice double header of Anywhere and I Go Hard, I Go Home rounded off the short but very sweet set. This was a well rehearsed set, and one mirrored throughout the land, but it shows that the system works as the crowds had been treated to a typically brilliant Presets show.

It is true they have been relying on a tried and true setlist, and using very much the same set throughout most of their Australian tour could have fatigued some of the die hards going to multiple shows. However two things have to be taken into account, firstly that this was the last night of what has been a very long and undoubtedly exhausting tour, and secondly, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

The Presets obviously have a bright future ahead of them, so it was nice to have had a tour the length and breadth of Australia before they move on to bigger and better things. Now that the tour is wrapped up, the Sydney duo are squirreling themselves away to work on their third studio release, but they deserve a break before they achieve well earned world domination.