To some a garage is nothing more than a place to park your car. Though to those that attended HiGrade last Friday, know that it’s the break-ier, percussive house music that you just can’t sit still to.

After the dark hard step sounds a few months ago on the last visit to our fair city from the Garage Pressure crew, one may be forgiven for thinking that that’s what we would hear again.

Crowd favourite Aniki had things going smoothly with his trademark set of darker nu skool breaks and crowd pleasing anthems, including the ever popular tracks from the remake of Donna Summers – I feel love, Green Velvet – Lala Land, Timo Mass – Doom’s Night and Missy Elliot – She’s a Bitch. A welcomed addition to the delight of the growing crowd was the inclusion of one of the nineties sublime moments in dance, Utah Saints – Something Good.

After the brief stint of nostalgia, he continued in breaks territory as the Garage Pressure lads and subsequent entourage made their way to the stage. MC VIP jumped on the mic to warm up his vocal chords and the crowd, and help Aniki through the end of his set with some classic garage style MC’ing to bridge the transfer over to Paul Fraser.

Paul’s set was straight and to the point. If you’ve listened to a garage or 2step compilation within the past five years and come across a stand out track that was a touch darker with a driving feel to it, then that track would have more than likely appeared in his set. Conversely to the last time the boys were up. Instead of the very dark tough breaks of their last visit, as promised, it was nothing but booty shakin’ garage and 2step. Keeping the party vibe alive, MC VIP rattled of rhymes and plenty of crowd call and response interaction. The audience, while a tad smaller for a Friday night, still had the energy and enthusiasm of ants before a storm, boogeying away happily as Paul went with gradually lighter sounds towards the end of his set.

Mr. Frost jumped on the ones and twos a bit after 2:30pm for a short half hour spurt, taking the sounds back to the shaded side of things, tho still managing a groovey feel with a couple commercial hits thrown in for good measure, in the way of Missy Elliot – Lick shots before the return of Mr. Fraser to take the kids home for another enjoyable night at the Moon Bar.

Many wonder why garage, 2step/breakstep never really took off in Brisbane (or in fact in Australia) with such an accessible yet sometimes very underground sound. Perhaps it was the controversy and overkill of the UK market that simply “ruined it for everyone” or perhaps it’s more a case of “we don’t know what’s good for us”.

Though needless to say, with more nights like HiGrade, there is still the possibility of partying like it’s (the garage hey-day of) 1999.

For all you garage and breakstep needs and set downloads check out www.garagepressure.com