Movement feat. Jono Fernandez @ Phoneix Bar, Sydney (05/11/04)

For those who are wondering, Movement is a new progressive night held at the Phoenix Bar on Oxford St, and features the best of the progressive breaks genre Sydney has to offer. That’s not all; the Movement team have also managed to secure a resident dj from Melbourne, Jono Fernandez. This guy has certainly made an impression on the progressive scene over the past year with appearances at ‘Stay In Touch’, and the recent Sasha gig at Sounds on Sunday last weekend. This brand new night is not something to miss, for all those Sweetchilli lovers and pure progressive breaks fans; this is the gig for you!

This being the second Movement gig so far, and having enjoyed the first so much, I just had to check it out again. I arrived at the venue a tad later than expected, just in time to catch the last track from Switch Vs McGuyver, the place was looking reasonably full at this point as apparently the crowd only began to seep in towards the start of Jono Fernandez. The first thing I noticed is how friendly the people at the door were, they seemed very happy to see some more eager patrons. The sound was nice and loud and some brilliant stuff was playing at the time, the anticipation was killing me seeing I had enjoyed the previous set from Fernandez so much, and he was due to start any minute. The venue is great too, it’s quite small but there’s still plenty of room to move around. After a few moments to settle in and take in the atmosphere, Jono Fernandez stepped up and got everyone dancing again. He played some great tracks and his mixing was superb, I just kept thinking it was a shame the place wasn’t packed out.

Some of my most memorable moments from the night had to be the crowd, with an already good list of regular punters eager for a great night of progressive. I noticed there were also many people from the Sweetchilli crowd who had heard about the night and come along to check it out. Fernandez dropped some exceptional tracks throughout the night, the best in my opinion being a remix of Orbital’s ‘One Perfect Sunrise’. The last time I had heard the track was when Jonathan Wall played it at Winter Break at the Horden. Unfortunately Jono’s set only went for two of the three hours advertised, but another great act came on afterwards and played some of my favourite tracks to finish off the night, the last track being ‘Out of Control’ from The Chemical Brothers.

I have a feeling that Movement is going to become a much more popular event in the next few months, and it’s a great feeling to know that there is another regular event out there that supports this type of music so much. I had an awesome night and be sure to see me at the next Movement event!