Welcome 2003 @ Vodafone Arena (31/02/03)
Reported by Bing Tuesday, January 14 2003
There is nothing better than making a special trip over to Melbourne for NYE, especially when there are massive international superstar DJ?s to be seen! The line up for the 02/03 Welcome event spanned right across the dance music spectrum taking in house, progressive, techno and hard trance (NRG) and that?s just the internationals. What became apparent very quickly was that there was no way in hell that we could possibly catch every act/DJ that we wanted too. But that is getting way ahead of myself, let?s digress back to the beginning.
I?ve been to Welcome NYE parties before, but never at a tennis centre (oh the docks how we miss you!) so I was very curious as to how exactly Future Entertainment would set up the nights festivities. Upon walking in the door we were met with all manner of merchandise, club cliché paraphernalia and memorabilia. Of course we powered straight past that and into the main room. OH MY GOD! To see Vodafone Arena transformed into a massive dance floor simply blew us away, the looks on our faces must have been priceless for the other punters who also turned up early! Personally, I will have a quiet snigger to myself every time I watch a little tennis or basketball being played on those courts in the future. There was a massive stage at one end, intelligent amounts of lighting (that means enough to do the job and not so much that you need sun glasses to be in the room, I like my clubs to be dark), plenty of room to dance but not so sparse that it couldn?t be filled by the 8000 clubbers who were to arrive very soon and even seating for those little breaks from the sweaty floor. We thought it best to scout out the rest of the arena which revealed the very popular Bass Station room to actually be a Bass Station long and thin hall way, the Hardware room to be an annoyingly echo filled cave and the Belfast room to be the best looking of the small rooms despite all the windows (a few sheets of black plastic wouldn?t have gone astray).
So, off to the main room we strolled.
First DJ of the night was local Melbourneite Gavin Kitel. Initially I was awe struck with just how loud and clear the PA was. It sounded un-fucking-believable! The bass rattled your chest and the mids and highs were crystal clear without cutting your brain in half (like some other piercing systems have in the past). Knowing that the PA was probably only at one third of its capabilities also gave me some tingles of excitement! However that initial buzz quickly wore off because, at the time, Kitel wasn?t really doing it for me musically. He was playing some very dark, very flat, very boring progressive house for the first 45 mins or so. It wasn?t terrible, his mixing was short, concise and to the point, but it just wasn?t interesting enough to get us going for the midnight build up.
The second half of his set was far better. The pace quickened a little, the bass lines developed into something a little funkier and an odd vocal here or there really got the dance floor moving. Timo Maas was scheduled for 10.30pm start, but didn?t actually hit the stage until 11. We still don?t know if this was a plan to get punters into the room early or not, but if it was it worked. For the last 1/3 of Kitel?s set he was playing to an almost full stadium and he definitely rose to the occasion. It wasn?t until later in the evening I realised what a perfect ?early set? he had played by giving the crowd just enough to get them going but not enough to detract from the impact the head liners would make later. Nice one, very professional.
When Timo Maas walked onto the stage with promoter Mark James the crowd erupted (and all he did was put his record box down near the decks!). Playing in such an early time slot is probably quite unfamiliar to a superstar like Mr Mass but musically I think he adjusted very nicely. His first four tracks were dubbed out, slow burning tribal house cuts. Very cool. By the time track 5 hit the speakers the crowd were gagging for an explosion and boy did they get it. BOOM!!! Fat bass, massive female vocal, huge crowd cheers, hands in the air (this is what it?s all about), and of course ACE and I shaking our heads shouting in unison, ?I want this track!? He quickly followed this bomb with his own remix of Starecase?s ? See, the first of many of Timo?s own productions to hit the decks.
It has to be said that we were somewhat disappointed with Timo?s mixing. On the night he couldn?t mix a cake. It wasn?t that the tracks were particularly out of sync, or that they were to fast or to slow necessarily, but Timo?s harsh flicking of the EQ?s left a lot to be desired. You would think that with 20 years experience in the DJing game he would have learnt a thing or two. Having only seen him play once I can?t really say wether or not he was simply having an off night, it probably should be taken into account that it was NYE and he was probably partying his ass off just as much as the rest of us. The other let down for me was the amount of old music he played (yeah, I know, it?s NYE and party anthems are well and truly allowed, but I?d hoped for more up front stuff). When he was playing new music his taste was impeccable so I?d definitely give him a second chance in the future.
My last gripe of Timo?s set is actually directed at Mark James and his ?getting on the mic? every five minutes to tell the crowd we would be counting down to New Years soon. For fucks sake we could all see the countdown on the three big screens, how stupid do you think we are? Did someone say spoon fed?
There was a lot of debate about what track Timo would drop at midnight but when the unmistakable wwwuuup wwwuuuppp wwwuuuppp wwwuuuppp of his Azzido Da Bass ? Doom?s Night remix kicked in it all became so obvious that we couldn?t believe we didn?t see it coming! At this point three massive green lasers lit up the main room! Very, very cool.
For the middle section of his set Mass entered the breaks arena dropping his massive remix of No Doubt?s - Hella Good and a few other choice, fat bass bombs. When the 4/4 came rolling back in, it was with renewed energy, upping the pace once again and driving us home.
Next in the control seat was Mark James. He started out with a couple of evil trance numbers that were great but unfortunately he got cheesy very quickly. His sound was set firmly in the big-room-trance era of 1999 when Paul Van Dyk was King and Chicane?s - Saltwater was a massive dance floor bomb. The kiddies on the floor were loving this, and going right off, but we got bored quickly and decided to head out around the other rooms for a peak at the action.
In Bass Station things were just as you would expect. Young crowd going NUTS, lots of hard synth lines, dubious vocals about ?loosing touch with morality,? and the obligatory 145bpm hard ass bass. Yeah it was fun for a break, but the room lacked something in atmosphere, as it was really just a hallway.
Upstairs in the Belfast arena things were quiet, almost empty bar a few DJ girlfriends and a couple of punters who probably wanted house music but missed out on tickets for Respect Is Burning. I heard that this room and the tek-disko room picked up later in the night from a few random punters.
Back downstairs in the Hardware arena the crowd had improved but the sound quality was painful on the ears. Rattle, rattle, rattle of tin in time with the bass just wasn?t cutting it for me, but the devoted techno massive of Melbourne were already powdered up (the floor that is) and havin? it full throttle (Melb-dancing).
Happy that we weren?t missing anything, off to the main room we went once again.
And here comes the trance again - ouch, ouch, ouch stop it please! (It?s my review and I?ll whine if I want to!).
Thankfully for me, towards the end of MJ?s girly, predictable, blatantly obvious trance set he picked up the pace (with CJ Bolland due next he really needed to if he didn?t wanna look soft) and started driving it HARD. I would have to label his last few tracks psy-trance except it wasn?t the cheesy, overly psychedelic, cliched stuff that we get a lot in Hobart (there were no Star Wars themes or silly ?the aliens have landed? vocals), it was more trance of the relentless style. Not NRG like Midro et al just driving, hard, hard, hard rolling music that was easy to party to and rather enjoyable. If his whole set was like this it might have been something to write home about.
Then entered CJ Bolland and his live show. This guy from Belgium made everyone look SOFT. Mark James, Will e Tell and Simon Digby pppffftttt!!! This guy is the true definition of banging! Let?s get the MC review out of the way early. Future Entertainment could have saved some cash and left him in Europe. He did a nice job of hyping the crowd on occasions but wasn?t really impressive or necessary. Bolland (Live) is something to behold. Running back and forth, stalking his banks of equipment, pushing buttons and pumping his fist it was hard not to get excited by the performance wether you like techno or not. It was excellent to hear some of his new, unreleased and forthcoming material. The crowd absolutely loved this hour of the night, screaming shouting and dancing so fast it was just crazy. The atmosphere was electric.
But towards the end of Bolland?s set I started to worry that Sister Bliss had been given the wrong time slot, how could she come on and play progressive after this onslaught?
When Bliss hit the decks it was to a gigantic ovation, it was more than obvious a lot of people were impressed with her at SummaDayze last year and had comeback for a SECOND DOSE OF HER MAGIC!!! Quickly answering my question of how to bridge the two sets she unleashed a nasty break beat track upon the crowd for her first number. Wow, wasn?t expecting that but it really worked. Once five minutes or so of the track had passed the audience had forgotten the speed of the previous act and were primed and ready to go down the progressive alley.
For the entire two hours Sister Bliss was DJing she didn?t once stop dancing. Nor did she drop a beat. Her mixing was so tight it was unbelievable, she actually made Timo look like a rank amateur bedroom banger by comparison. Having a history as a proper musician probably helps her DJing tremendously, as every harmony sat perfectly on top of one another almost as if they were meant to slot together as one. The Bliss take on progressive is not one for darkness, brooding or nastiness. Her?s was a melodic progressive sound that never really hit the trance sound of Faithless? dance floor tracks but kept away from driving down into the evil that so many progressive DJ?s get caught up in (oops, there is a time and a place for everything I swear!). The other cool thing about her sound was the way she blended in huge, chunky house tracks with the melodic progressive. This gave her set a boost of extra energy every now and then, as did the occasional breaks number. Speaking of which her cheeky, unreleased mix of Faithless ? Crazy English Summer tore the roof off! Finishing out her set with the anthem of our trip was a very, very cheeky bootleg (that I wish I bought when I saw it last month) of Bushwacka?s Love Story with Planet Funk?s Chase The Sun. Awesome. We want that record now also!
At this point it must be about 6.30am. The crowd had started to thin out a little towards the back and Princess was ready to take a well-deserved seat. But not me because up next was Sean Quinn (and I knew he was going to play the big progressive tracks I?d been waiting for/buying lately). ACE of course was still rocking, but seriously when isn?t he?
Sean opened with Pole Folder and CP?s ? Dust (the beautiful James Zabiela mix), somewhere in the middle he bought shivers to my neck and back with Kirsty Hawkshaw?s ? Fine Day (the equally beautiful James Holden mix) and he rocked the floor with Junkie XL?s HUGE new Infusion ? Legacy remix. Possibly his biggest track (tying for anthem of the trip) was Tomaz and Filterheadz ? Sunshine. Thanks Sean, you rock!
After Sean, Kasey Taylor was due up on the decks. By this point we had forgotten that there even were other rooms to check out, oops. I was looking forward to Kasey as at this point some darkness would have gone nicely but I was a bit disappointed. Instead of his usual style he closed the night out with the hardest, banging, flat, most uninspiring progressive I?ve heard in ages. Boring? Yes indeed. Bummer? Not really as the rest of the event was so damn good.
Time to head back to the hotel, to chill a little before SummaDayze, there will be a FD review of that event soon also. See ya next time Welcome, we?ll be back for sure.
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