“This Friday at Babylon, the last of the hard events for a long time (possibly ever)”.

Those were the official words from Babylon Quatro on ITM. The rumours had been rife for weeks and, finally, it was confirmed – Babylon was no longer the home of the Hard Dance Army. So I took a deep breath, contained my anguish, and decided to see whether Babylon would go out with a bang or a whimper.

Arriving at the usual time – 10.30am – a small crowd greeted me. Morgan Kent was on the decks and ‘Come Fly With Me’ was my entrance theme. Catching up with a few in the know peeps, I discovered that all the local DJs had been unceremoniously fired. Not exactly a great start to the night. So I left, grubbed around a few Civic dives, and came back.

Paul Holden took to the decks about 12.30pm. His style was banging hard house. The crowd, which remained steadily between the 30-40 mark all night, bounced along, but never really looked inspired. Holden was enthusiatic behind the decks, smiling and punching the air, but I felt a bit embarrassed as his zeal was never matched by the punters. He nicely gave out a few free CDs and I’m sure that, given a different venue and a reasonable sound system, he’d probably crank out a decent set.

Flipside looked bored, or maybe he was just tired, and, although I prefered his set to Holden’s, it teetered on the brink of Happy Hardcore but never quite stepped over the edge, much to my disappointment.

In fact, the whole night was a huge let down. My heart just wasn’t in it. I think it’s the only night I’ve ever had at Babs where I haven’t known half the place (and meet the other half during the night). So folks, it’s over. Babylon is no more. It’s been fun, I’ve meet copious amounts of beautiful people and, let’s be positive here, I’m sure the Hard Dance scene in Canberra will never really die (ie, check out Frenetic on 17 Jan at their new home – Toast!!).