It was a chilly Saturday evening when I walked into Gas for Frantic’s final event 0f 2003, in which Frantic had teamed up with international club night Slinky. Frantic was pumping in Gas whilst Slinky was located upstairs in Bohem.

Upon entering Gas, I was blown away by the lights Frantic had set up, they had no less that 10 Laser pro lasers in all colours (including my favourite pink), four high power strobes and an incredible prismed disco ball, all of which they were not afraid to use. My friends and I found ourselves on the balcony dancing looking at the lights for most of the night. Entering Frantic, we were immediately hit with a wall of bass that seemed to reverberate through my chest cavity. I loved it.

We tore ourselves away from Frantic to check out the Slinky set up. Slinky set up their DJ booth in the middle of the dance floor. The booth revolved giving everyone the opportunity to see the DJ at work. Around the dance floor were four huge screens that had different freaky images projected on it. The set up was great although I felt that they did not make the room dark enough to really appreciate the visuals. The atmosphere upstairs was decidedly laid back compared to Gas, so although Tim Lyell, Slinky DJ was playing a good tribally set, we found ourselves drawn back down to Gas where people were dancing.

Micky D and Steve Nichols were playing back to back winding the crowd up with their hard trance/house styles. Micky D is one of Sydney’s big name DJs whilst Steve Nichols is fresh off the plane from playing in England for the last three years. Steve has been quickly snapped up as a Frantic DJ and the two off them quickly got the crowd screaming and sweaty, just in time for Yoshi.

Yoshi started his set with no holds barred, pushing an already frenetic crowd into levels of unbridled energy and euphoria. Yoshi was the perfect DJ to set up the crowd for Lab 4 who were up next. After listening to Yoshi’s set, I made a mental note to go out this week and get his CD. I ventured upstairs to hear Jumping Jack’s set and he actually got people up off those lounges in Bohem, with his style of hard trance. I have always been a fan of Jumping Jack and it was good to see people dancing upstairs.

Ten minutes to Lab 4, I dragged everyone downstairs to get a position where we could watch them, the lights and also jump around. None of my friends had heard of Lab 4 and I assured them that they were in for a treat. Lab came on with an even bigger sound (if that was possible!) and from the first track whipped the crowd into a state of madness that was addictive, to shouts of harder and hard core they kept pushing the crowd ‘til I thought we would burst.

In case you don’t know much about Lab 4 the members Lez and Adam met in 1991 and originally formed an industrial metal band MAD, MAD broke up in 1994 and it was then that LAB 4 was formed. Innovative and off the wall, they definitely do not follow rules; for example in Oct 1999 at their First Swedish gig… LAB4 got arrested by the Swedish Drug Squad and spent the following six hours in a cell, designing the artwork for their next album, ‘Evilution’ (although the album itself hadn’t actually been written yet!) They did their first tour of Australia in the year 2000 the year they set up their own label ‘Fragile’ and have come back every year to sold out crowds and expanded gigs that include other states in Australia and New Zealand.

All too soon Lab 4 had to leave but Nick Sentience picked up where they left off, keeping the frenzied masses frenzied! After listening to his set you can understand why Mauro Picotto, Judge Jules, Pete Tong and Fergie all love Nick Sentience. Nick’s electrifying brand of uptempo, driving, pumping, dirty tech-trance and the hardest house is twisting dancefloors worldwide.

I actually missed hearing Dave Lee, another Slinky DJ, play as I got caught up in the energy of Gas, but decided to cool off and check out John Kelly. John Kelly would have to be one of the most interactive DJs I have ever seen, he kept the crowd entertained by actually including them in his mixing, he would cue the crowd as to when he wanted them to start jumping around like lunatics and would even get them chanting some of the anthems he would play, especially that Bass In Your Face song. He made me wish I had spent more time in Slinky, but I found that the energy levels at Frantic just kept me there.

After about ½ an hour, my friends wanted to go back to Frantic so we ventured downstairs to find Phil Reynolds the biggest star on London’s huge hard house scene and resident at Frantic on the decks, the crowd still screaming for more, the tempo had not altered and before we knew it, it was time to go. We split up some off to Oxford St others home and me to a recovery, now where did those hours go?