Well Two Tribes has come to Adelaide, and it sure left it’s mark. Despite a low turnout for an event of such calibre bucket loads of fun was had by all. What is commonly known as Australia’s greatest event was visiting Adelaide for the first time with a lineup full of globally respected internationals.
I arrived at the venue formally known as Planet to bad news, tickets were half the regular price on the door and one of the acts I was most looking forward to, Futureshock had pulled out due to illness, which did not matter that much in the end due to the quality of the other acts, and it meant all internationals were given two hour sets. Upon inspecting the venue, I noticed it had a massive facelift from its usual bland self; the production was top notch and the layout perfect spanning three stages with some of the finest lighting I’ve seen in a club.
The first act and only local DJ I witnessed for the night was Fabric head honcho Mal Chia, who put on a brilliant set for the devoted progressive fans of Adelaide. His set was a fine mix of progressive, a perfect warmup for the acts to come, which featured one of me favourite progressive tunes of all time, the classic Killahurtz – West on 27th which sounded awesome on the massive system. Mal finished with a massive breaks track which set the mood perfectly for the next act on the Future stage, Koma & Bones.
Koma & Bones kicked off their set with the new Freq Nasty tune, Come Let Me Know which had the small but passionate breaks crowd jumping, from there the first 30 minutes or so of there set was quite up and down as they got a feel for what the crowd liked. They hit the spot when they played the breaks bootleg Jacks Groove. From then it was non-stop techy madness as they had the smallish crowd pumping with tunes that had me a regular trainspotter scrambling for names. They finished up however with the dance floor destroying JDS tune Blackout.
A quick inspection of the other acts revealed a somewhat bland house set from DJ Falcon and a pumping tech-trance set from Tomcraft, which left many people surprised at its quality. However for me it was time to see Hybrid on the Future stage. When I arrived back at the Future stage I noticed the crowd had built considerably in anticipation for Hybrid and they weren’t disappointed either. Hybrid pumped what I must say was one of the best sets I have witnessed from a DJ, cranking out two hours of hard thumping breaks to one of the most intense dance floors I have ever been a part of. Tunes like Plump DJ’s The Gate and the Hybrid remix of the REM classic The Great Beyond went down a treat to the loving crowd. Towards the end of there set they dropped a few of their own tunes such as the beautiful What If I Survive and their new single True to Form which had me and many others singing along. There set was appropriately closed with the classic tune Finished Symphony.
By now it was time to check out one of the worlds most popular acts BT. By the time I arrived he was already an hour into his two hour set. However I had arrived in time to hear him rinsing out some nice breaks including two tunes off the new Adam Freeland album, Supernatural Thing and Heel n Toe. It was towards the end of his set tho they he began to drop some of his classics such as Godspeed and Flaming June to absolutely massive responses. The only downside of BT that I found however was that his “Live Laptop Symphony” set was just mixing on a Laptop with effects. That didn’t matter to the crowd tho as he has the dance floor on pumping thru the whole two hours.
After this I returned back to the Future stage to see the second hour of Lucien Foort, personally I preferred his last performance at Heaven, however this was still an awesome set cranking out some hard thumping breaks like JDS Blackout and some awesome Tech Trance which was mixed absolutely superbly. While this was going on Green Velvet was rinsing out some Techno Bombs including a live performance of La La Land and Picotto was thumping out some tech-trance which I personally found quite bland with the exception of the new Josh Wink tune, Oakish.
Overall it was a good first attempt for Two Tribes in Adelaide. Some improvements can be made, but that can be said about nearly every event. But what really matters I had a brilliant time and so did most other people that I spoke too. Here’s to hoping it happens again next year!
