Summadayze @ Myer Music Bowl (01/01/03)
Reported by Bing Monday, January 13 2003
Having attended SummaDayze parties in the past we knew it would be a tall order to turn up at 8am after partying all through the night before at Welcome, (and getting drunk on tap beer with Tassie ex-pat Chris B the night before that!) so we decided to give the early morning proceeds a miss.
First impressions upon arrival: there are a lot of people here, the ferris wheel and jumpy castle slide are back, the music seems fairly quiet (not projecting to the back of the arena) and damn there are a lot of people here!
Turning up at lunchtime we were greeted with not Summer but Winter. Bloody Melbourne had been 35 degrees plus every for the last week of 2002 but couldn?t find one more day of sunshine for us to party in. Surly Mark James has enough pull these days to ring up God and book the sun for this event? Anyway, our spirits (clothes and bodies) were dampened a little for the first few hours but it wasn?t a great problem to find energy to solider on!
Picking up directly where he left off at Welcome Kasey Taylor was driving the PA in to the nastiest areas of house music - dark, hard and very, very banging. Seemingly devoid of melody all together at the start of his set I was totally uninspired and quickly lost interest. This was probably my biggest mistake of the trip. Opting for a short walk back to the hotel to get some better-suited clothes rather than listening to Kasey Taylor (seems even weirder now seeing it in print) Princess and I went for a walk around the other stages and then out of the grounds all together. From what I was told upon return I had missed out on the Kasey I know and love while on walkabout. Farken! Highlights from his set that I missed (fuck and bugger) were classic Sasha in the form of Belfunk and James Holden?s much coveted Nothing. Gggrrr?
I guess it was about 2.30pm or there abouts when I realised the lack of power in the music was probably (in part) due to our little posse not being close enough to the action. We moved down the hill a bit through the 20 000 punters closer to the virtual mosh pit near the stage. Almost instantly the music became clearer and sounded cooler. The electric atmosphere that was floating off of the mad punters at the front of the pit was infectious and the smiles of the night before started to return to our faces.
Jason Midro?s popularity in Melbourne is like that of a God. The guy is absolutely worshiped by the kids and this was reflected in his move from opening 8am DJ two years ago to a prime time spot in the middle of the day this year. Admittedly it was a tad strange (even ACE admitted it) to be listening to an NRG set in the day time, let alone as a warm up to a house act like Basement Jaxx. However Midro is a class entertainer and that is exactly what he provided (even if we were having a bit of a laugh at it all!). Some of the music he got away with playing was astounding ? a remix of Tainted Love and another of U2 at the top of my bazaar list. It worked so I guess it?s difficult to complain.
Once again the rain appeared and we decided to give up on fashion (oh the sin in Melbourne) and don our plastic, $2 rain ponchos. Oh yes, we were looking amazing! Personally I was quite dry for the rest of the day so the sneers from the soft mohawk and mullet with bad blond tips rich boys and girls in their double different coloured Diesel denim didn?t bother me in the slightest.
The drink cards probably deserve a mention. What an excellent scam by who ever was running the bar. The punters buy a $20 drink card, then they buy two overpriced UDL?s for $8 each, that leaves $4 left but obviously not enough to get another vodka and lemon lime. But wait, they don?t care because they already have your orange note and all you have left is a worthless piece of cardboard at the end of the night. And the scam of the century goes to (drum roll please)?
Mark James once again turned the clock back a few years with some oldish trance tunes. I had a little bit of a wonder through the tek and house stages at this point but they paled in comparison to the atmosphere of the main arena so back to the hill I went. To my surprise MJ was slowly bringing the pace down a bit. Excellent. He did a fine job of slowing the tempo gradually without loosing the floor (I guess we the punters had know where to go but a still) so top marks to him. The vocal mix of Cosmos ? Take Me With You absolutely went off.
By this time we were going nuts and having a ball, how could you resist really, SummaDayze is the world?s biggest NYD party after all. And so on to the first of the headliners, Basement Jaxx.
As soon as the duo appeared we moved even closer to the front to get amongst it a bit more. The crowd were waving their hands in the air, singing, yelling, screaming and generally going right off! Brilliant, this is why we came. It is an amazing thing to see that many people (20 000 completely sold out another few hundred partying outside the gates) going nuts to the music we all love so much. In a word it?s fantastic!
The Jaxx are known as a house duo with eclectic tastes and an almost anti-perfection policy when it comes to DJing. All the rules were thrown to the wind while these guys were playing and it made for some first class entertainment. Now don?t get me wrong, it isn?t that Basement Jaxx can?t mix with perfect seamlessness when it is called for, it is more that they don?t constantly need to too rock a party. This distinct lack of respect for the usual rules saw them drop techno, off beat weird leftfield and a bundle of their own dirty RnB tracks in amongst the proper house we were expecting. Get Me Off, Where?s Your head At, Do Your Thing etc all got an airing and went down a treat. Some off beat hits like The Cure (Love Cats?) and a new Missy Elliot single also stood out from the pack. I?ve seen Basement Jaxx (Live) a couple of times but I think the DJ show is probably far more entertaining if you are in the mood to dance.
Next up on the main stage was DJ grandad Graeme Gold. Right from his very first track he laid down a statement that he was going to be offering up something very different to what had been seen through the earlier stages of the day. A bootleg of a recent Red Hot Chilli Peppers track (By The Way) twisted into a club monster blew the minds of everyone in the amphitheatre. You could almost hear the collective, ?What the fuck?? Unfortunately for Mr Gold us Hobartians come from an obsessive house music background and were being drawn to the side stage by an invisible force.
That force should have been the MOS duo of Junior Jack and Kid Crème (they cancelled for the second time in a row) and were replaced by none other than the man behind Kings of Tomorrow, Sandy Rivera. When we got around to the house stage it became quickly apparent that a lot of other punters had the same idea because it was absolutely packed and going off in a funky kind of way. Andy Van was spinning his typical vocal house sounds, which we thought would be a nice build up to the closing set for this stage.
To our surprise Rivera had other ideas. As soon as Van?s last track wound out he dropped some deeper, tougher house than anyone expected. Oh yes indeed, this was magic! Rivera was perfect in the mix, had impeccable musical taste (lots of dub and tribal) and in short he fucking rocked it! Without a doubt, for the hour we stood in the house area I didn?t stop bopping, nodding and dancing like a nutter once. And neither did ACE. And neither did Princess. And neither did Chris B!!! For a last minute fill in Rivera couldn?t be eclipsed and I?m kind of glad that the others pulled out. Bugger them, Sandy is the man.
The messy call of the main stage beckoned us once again. I guess it was 10ish and Gold was finishing off his set with some stereotypical-massive-UK-club-anthem kind of stuff. At this point of the night it didn?t even bother me because I knew just around the corner was Mr Quinn in his customary closing set position. A personal highlight from the end of Mr Gold?s set was the new Stanton Warrior?s break beat mix of Love Story, very nice indeed.
A quick side note. I said to Chris B, ?Hey lets get a little closer, you lead?? and then whoosh the man was off and running. Ducking and weaving through the tired crowd, Chris is a natural for finding the tiny gaps in a massive audience just large enough to squeeze through. Admittedly we did end up with the best position that we had had all day! I just wish I had of uttered those deadly eight words a little earlier.
Sean Quinn hit the stage in full on party mode. Behind him Kasey, Gold and Mark James danced like first-time-nutters. DJ?s that dance, hey I bet you don?t believe me, but how crazy is it to see some of our countries finest going nuts just like the rest of us? Bloody priceless!
Anyway, Sean had it all. Hard and driving, melodic hands in the air moments, sing-a-long anthems from the days of yore (was that Blue Amazon ? No Other Love?) the lot. Infusion, Hawkshaw and Tomaz and Filterheadz made an appearance again alongside Greed?s ? Strange World, Origene?s ? Sanctuary (Ivan Gough mix) and that crazy, relentless future bomb, that barely waits to take breath in its super short one bar breakdown, that was dropped by Timo the night before (and obviously I don?t know its name yet, but Chris is onto it for me).
Three encore songs and it was time for lights off and power down. For us the party was still going strong back at Chris B?s flat (I joked about it on FD forum, then it came true, be careful what you wish for kids!) well into the wee hours. Phew, it was a big couple of days but I wouldn?t trade it for all the progressive promos you could fling me. Well maybe?
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