Evolution 1 @ The Venue, Hobart (02/11/02)
Reported by Tristan Sunday, November 3 2002
So on a warm Saturday night, the Hobart faithful once again set foot upon the path to dancefloor Nirvana. Tonight, courtesy of Jason and Ben from Evolution Productions the guides would be Martyn Allen, originally hailing from the UK and now Sydney based, and Nik Fish, who despite a tumultuous year, would be dishing out his own brand of hard trance.
Now when I say the Hobart faithful, I mean the faithful. As falling bang in the middle of the university exam period and combined with a $55 cover charge, many morally weak punters, had more than the normal amount of excuses to give this one a miss. But Evolution knew this and enticed people with a plethora of incentives to attend, of which none was larger than the chance to hear Nik Fish play in Hobart after a long absence to due to personal organisation problems.
Cruising on in to the mysteriously named ?The Venue? around 10pm (one full hour after opening) the crowd was as sparse as Anti-America t-shirts in John Howard?s wardrobe. However, whether this was due to the early time or an indication of later attendance was impossible to judge. Always pleasing to see are friendly staff and fortunately they were in abundance here. The room (surprisingly non-smoking) was spacious with simple yet effective adornments including massive Nik Fish Love Parade canvas posters which I?m sure had more than one punter mentally picturing them on their wall at home. The sound was more than adequate and was kept to an intelligent level as well.
Musically, while one half of the promotion team, Jason, sprinted round like a man on a mission, the other half, Ben greeted people with the sounds of deeper progressive trance and harder progressive, before easing it up with ?Saints and Sinners ?Pushin Too Hard? for the change over to Gillie who set about his set with customary precision and pushed on focusing more on melody than darkness.
Considering the population of the dancefloor, Martyn Allen played a bit too minimally to start but soon opened up the throttle with the chunky tribal progressive number that is the Luke Chable mix of ?Haw? by Alex and Tommyboy Martyn went on to play the built for a big room Peace Division mix of Trancesetter?s ?Roaches? and the brand new Bedrock single ?Emerald? (Filterheadz Mix). He played my favourite style of music which lurks in the grey area between pumping progressive house and driving progressive trance, a sound Hobartians have literally been starved of in recent times. Playing this stonking brand of progressive, it was a great pity many people missed out on this set, as it was of the highest order, and would have been crucial to many people?s musical fulfilment.
But he wasn?t finished yet, sending the enthusiastic punters through the roof with a John ?00? Fleming double, consisting of the new J?00?F mix of Seraque ?Wandering Star? (a tune so brilliant I have had it on repeat for the entire time this review has taken to write) and then followed it with the Fleming mix of Energy 52 ?Café Del Mar?. If this wasn?t enough for me to handle when the familiar strains of the Oliver Klein mix of Flight 643 by DJ Tiesto came in, it was all over. The move from progressive to trance was seamless by Martyn and a credit to the man and a demonstration of his immense talent in the clearest way possible. The high majority of tunes were absolute highlights and while bridging the gap between progressive house and Nik Fish was a difficult task, it was done with almost arrogant ease. After leaving for a short time to check out the chill area in the courtyard below, Martyn had let the crowd catch their breath, with Accessive Rhythm ?Activate? before the Fish set took the first step forward in destroying the place. Unfortunately at this stage it was clear the place was far from capacity, but it certainly didn?t phase the DJ?s or the mad as hatters crowd.
Acting in contrast to recent opinion, Nik Fish was exceptionally friendly, and was more than happy to sign autographs and chat to people beforehand. In fact, before, during and after Nik was extremely friendly to everyone, no doubt helping form part of the sensational vibe in the room. Clearly a fan of Eminem, the ?Without Me? acapella got a severe workout throughout the set and was always well placed. Playing beats harder than the arteries of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders, the set got off to a flying start with tracks off his new Love Parade CD, including Murphy Brown ?Energizer 2002? and Soundgrabber ?Acidfighter? early in the piece.
Undeniably the crowd had long been waiting for this type of music and were not afraid to show it especially when massive tracks like Oliver Klitzing?s ?I Like That Beat? and The DJ Scot Project Mix of Yoda?s ?Definitely? were dropped. If the crowd had long been waiting for this type of music then how highly Nik Fish?s appearance had been anticipated can only be guessed at. With the crowd feeding off Nik and Nik feeding off the crowd, Evolution 1 had quickly descended into the most vicious of cycles. With Nik playing more big tunes than I have similes and analogies, the crowd were only too eager to use the dancefloor space at their disposal, a far cry from conditions at recent events which have spurned the development of the ?Hobart Bounce?.
Not satisfied to just cue, mix and play, Nik worked the EQ?s, the channel faders and the 33/45 switches, going over and above the job description of a normal hard trance DJ. A highlight being the cueing up to perfection of the Marco V Mix of Energy 52 ?Café Del Mar? so when the record playing was cut, the famous spine tingling breakdown came in. The one bitch I have is that he made me wait for the encore for my request, but when those evilest of vocals kicked in and the Derb Mix of Space Frog ?Follow Me? was belted out, complete with spot on Slim Shady sampling over the top I was more amped than a Marshall. The staying round to sign CD?s and have photo?s taken only cemented in my mind what a professional Nik Fish is, and the importance he places upon his relationship with his fans.
If Evolution can be defined as a gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form, only time will tell whether Martyn Allen and Nik Fish helped achieve this. While a combination of factors worked to keep a capacity crowd away, the devoted people who attended were rewarded many times over. With Jason and Ben providing everything from open air chill area to free lollipops to free after party, while they may not have funded the matching pair of BMW?s, chances are they?ve done something more important. I would guarantee that everyone who was there for the two headliners walked away raving about the event, meaning Evolution productions have set foundations for success in future events success, by gaining the most important endorsement ? punter word of mouth.
To those who didn?t attend whatever you do ? don?t re-offend. You have been warned.
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