The second instalment of Kink saw a return to the Arthouse with a visit (the first?) to these shores of ATFC. The Kink concept arose from the ashes of the Sydney branch of Moneypennys, incorporating the lessons learnt from that previous effort, and I was keen to see what formula they had come up with.

On the night, Kink was sharing the venue with the sold out Renaissance tour. It was always going to be interesting to see how such an arrangement would work… And it is fair to say it didn’t work that well.

Getting in did not prove much of a problem… small que… hand over ticket… get wristband… in you are.

Kink was using the bottom floor of the Arthouse venue, which consists of the hall-like main room with tall ceilings and an amusing lit dance floor. From the photos I’ve seen of the previous Kink, it looked like the room was set up in a similar fashion: with sheet like ribbons running from the ceilings. The normal DJ booth in the main room is elevated at one end far above the dance floor. For Kink, however, they had set up the DJ on a stage in front of this. The highlight for me was the lit dance floor which, somewhat fortunately, didn’t have everyone pulling off their best John Travolta imitations.

The second room was off to the side, and was a decent sized bar unto itself. I didn’t spend too much time in this room for the night, so my review of it largely ends here. The music throughout the night was pretty deep downbeat house; with a chill vibe predominant most of the time.

All in all… I think this setup was really good for a dance event… a good sized main room with tall ceilings that could be kept relatively dark, a bar-like second room with enough space for chilling or dancing, linked with a corridor down the middle. The size of the venue certainly requires a decent crowd… but if that can be achieved, then I believe it’s one of the better additions to Sydney’s venue options that we’ve seen in a while.

There were problems however… and most of these stemmed around the sharing of the venue. The size of the 2 events happening meant there were a lot of people in the complex for the evening. And unfortunately the whole complex was sharing the one set of toilets and one cloakroom. After a lengthy wait at the cloakroom… the decision was made that jackets around the waist were quite suitable as the new clubbing chic. The queues to the bathrooms were pretty long throughout the night. These were probably the main issues for the Kink patron… but it’s probably fair to say the venue sharing caused many more problems for Renaissance patrons… then again, that’s another review.

When we arrived around 1.00am, Shamus was warming up the crowd for ATFC. This was largely a set of upfront house and certainly had the crowd dancing away. Although upfront, it wasn’t too big tune laden and (surprisingly) was mostly non-vocal. This was somewhat a theme of most of the sets which surprised me a little given the line-up on the main floor (Shamus, ATFC and Jackster). Near the end of his set Shamus certainly got a big reaction to Coloursound’s Fly with Me and finished off his set with a couple of funky percussive numbers.

ATFC followed on from Shamus at 2.00pm. The crowd at this stage had built up significantly and the whole of the main room seemed healthily full. In fact the whole of the complex seemed bulging with people. ATFC started off in a similar vein to how Shamus finished… with some funky percussive numbers. His set was essentially very well mixed club house. His mixing and track selection were very impressive with a well sequenced progression of funky beats and baselines. Added to this was his frequent use of acapellas to deliver a very accomplished set. I had been expecting to here all of his hits… but instead he choose to mix it up with newer tracks, teasing us occasionally with an acapella or baseline from those more familiar songs. He finally dropped the Bad Habit acapella into the mix, and received the expected popular response. This was followed shortly after by a crowd pleasing take on Dionne Warwick’s Say a Little Prayer. The set finished up at 4.00am, leaving me most impressed with what I had seen, although a little disappointed that as a headliner he only had a 2 hour set.

Jackster followed up ATFC and took the helm until closing. His set started off in more percussive territory but quickly moved on to more funky sounds. Although some of the mixing was a little out at times, Jackster was quick to correct and certainly had the crowd in his hands for all of his set. He certainly had them going when he teased ATFC’s Sleep Talk several times before finally mixing it in. And a highlight for me was Tracey in My Room by EBTG v Soul Vision interspersed with the Music Sounds Better with You vocal. It was great to see the promoter dancing not only behind the decks, but also coming from behind them and on to the dance floor for a couple of songs. 6.00am neared with the dance floor still full, and with encouragement by even the promoter, we got an extra song or two from Jackster before it was all wound up.

So, two Kink’s down, what are we to make of this club night?
Almost unbelievably they seem to have already developed a regular following and have come up with a tuned formula that delivers funky upfront music in a suitable venue with a big turn out. I get the feeling with Kink, you know what you’re going to get… and they deliver.