Upon arriving at the renovated 77 I was amazed at what they have achieved with the place, opening it up by removing a wall or two, redesigning the bar into a semi-circular configuration which still provides enough (possibly even more) service space but freeing up valuable room on either side for more couches and a larger dance floor than the old 77 setup. Moving and compacting the DJ booth to a corner has also provided more dancing space and taken a new direction from the usual DJ front and centre setups.
Inspite of all this new dancefloor space there seems to still be plenty of room for a pool table and plenty of couches, tables and chairs…. also good to see they have kept one of their video projectors to add that special addition to nights, with an interesting picture frame screen. The quality of sound throughout the venue was excellent, with volume a priority on the dancefloor but backing off in the more comfy areas to allow for that post dance chatting with mates.
After grabbing a reasonably priced drink (good to see they haven’t hiked the bar prices) I sat down to enjoy a solid musical start to the night thanks to Dave Slade, playing some quality tech. As the crowd in the venue steadily built Matt Aubusson took to the decks, upping the stakes with the music and the vibe, grinning from ear to ear, tweeking the EQs and getting very creative by droping extra loops and cuts from the CDJ1000 in the booth much to the delight of the already storming dancefloor. Towards the end of his set trouble started with a malfunctioning turntable which was thankfully replaced not far into Ajax’s set. Spinning a mix of harder tech and his mashup material, Ajax seemed to have the crowd in the palm of his hand.
Dave Choe kept the pace up but the crowd seemed to dwindle a little as the night wore on, maybe it was the well priced drinks taking their toll or my just my perception. Towards the end of Dave’s set the anticipation was starting to build for the original men of 77 techno to hit the decks, as people saw Sugar Ray (Good) milling next to the DJ booth. I’m sure memories of the Tweekin nights were in the minds of many in attendence. Ray took to the decks to a huge round of cheers from a crowd keen to begin a new era of quality techno for Sydney, and Ray delivered with a mix of old and new that truely pounded the dance floor and the punters responded. As things kept rolling, before I knew it Ray had morphed into Phil Smart and the music was still thumping along but my need for sleep was getting stronger.
With this combination of old and new Glitch seems to have struck a cord with the sydney techno community and definately has a chance of converting many new ears to sounds not heard for a while in Sydney. With the new setup at 77 a winner in my book it’s definately going to take back a vital place in the Sydney scene, and I hope to see Glitch returning there as soon as possible (or as soon as the boys can afford the bar tab) ;).
