Bass Station birthdays really are something special.  And I know it’s not because my humble beginnings hark back to the seedy alley days of Bass Station at the CBD.  There really IS something exciting about celebrating the fact that the institution has lived on yet another year.  It’s been extremely paramount (since the early days) for me as a punter to attend each birthday.  If I were to miss a Bass Birthday, I may as well hack off my legs and remain a hobbit for the entirety of my life.  They are the club night party of the year, and birthday number six was certainly no exception.

Walking through, wearing that pants I swear at the end of each birthday I’m never wearing again (I’m such a bloody sucker for tradition), I was greeted by an extremely large Unidentified Flying Object… except it wasn’t flying.  Very much stationary and very much smack bang in front of the DJ Console.

Jewelz (who is referred to by some as Melbourne’s “Queen of Hard Trance”) battled it out with Nick Compound, in an extremely superb flowing set of hard numbers, but not too hard, making it a very fitting opener for the night.  We were even treated to some Bass classics, such as the Australian stormer “Dreams” by Quench and The Picotto bootleg “Gonna Get Ya Lizard”.  Also on offer was the Novy vs. Eniac sampling Commander Tom track “Attention” – which sounds a lot like she’s singing “Show me your new treanchcoat”.  Both Jewelz and Compound whipped the crowd into an awesome frenzy, preparing all for one of the most awesome nights out this year.

I must share my anger however at the unnecessary remake of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” being played, much to the delight of the stampeding gorillas in the corner.  Of course, familiarity goes down very well with a crowd, however it left a very sour taste in my mouth.  All was rectified when Walt’s “Bring The Pain” was churned out.  Hallelujah!  I was almost ready to do a Chopper and hack off my ears!

Interstate DJ Baby Gee took to the decks, opening up with the Matrix sampling “Red Pill, Blue Pill”.  Nice stomping German trance grooves, with a flashback to 2002 with the awesome “Hardventure” alighting the floor.

Off to the back room to check out promising newcomer (well kind of newcomer) and Tiesto fan,  L.C.K.  This boy never seems to fail me when I hear him out, and once again, his technical wizardry behind the wheels of steel amazed me.  Tough yet extremely melodic trance, a big kudos to him for playing (the surprisingly good) Cosmic Gate choon “Tomorrow”.  Keep an eye out for this boy in the future; he’s up there with Otek as one of the next big DJ’s about to explode all over Melbourne’s dance scene in 2005.

Master Kaos started his main room set with an interestingly progressive techno beginning, then moved his way through German trance to a tiny bit of Hardstyle.  He then took a very brave step by playing a vocal trance number… with Rob-Lowe-style 80’s saxophone’s through it.  Brilliant!  His amazing energy and mixing smoothness won the crowd over and had the atmosphere at one of the night’s all-time peaks.

Last year, Bass Station’s 5th Birthday sported an International guest in the form of Leeroy Thornhill, formerly of the Prodigy.  Now, Bass took quite possibly one of the bravest moves in the clubs history and put a breaks DJ on… in the main room of a major Bass event.  All ran smoothly and everyone enjoyed the change from bangin’ 4 by 4 beats to a broken 2 hours of madness.  And once again, Bass took a brave move, giving Thomas P. Heckman (aka: Drax) the all clear to play live for an hour for the predominantly German-based Bass Station crowd.  What started off sounding like a Psy Trance number made in heaven, lead into the chunkiest of techno with nose-bleed beats that caused a serious eruption on the floor.   Heckman even alerted the crowd at one point they had to hold on a moment while he cued up the next sample on his dat player, which did nothing but excite everyone even more.

The Drax classic “Amphetamine” started to blast its way through the speakers, and the 50% of people there that actually knew the song, started to wail about like chickens with no head.  Excitement was at its all time high.  I think it’s even safe to say, some people may have been running to the toilet, clutching at their unmentionables, from how overly excited they had gotten.  A very toughened up version of the classic (extremely similar to the 2001 rework that gets played about every so often) pierced through the club. 

As the live set came to an end, we were treated to a very Joey Beltram style tech, with a heavy percussion able to persuade even the Queen shake her fat arse to its stomping bass.  Acid I hear you say?  Oh there was much 303 action, with the final track ripping new arseholes into everyone in the club that still had their eardrums after the shriek of “Amphetamine”.

Nick Compound and Jason Midro waved to everyone in the crowd, ready to launch the first Sound Of Now Vinyl, featuring a track by Nick & Jason, and also by Alpharisc and Jason.  Midro spoke a bit and Nick nodded whilst cueing up their awesome release “Music Is The Key”, which has some of the most amazing acid-tech synths and beats in it I’ve heard all year.  Reminiscent of the genius that is Detox Records’ Solar 7, this is one that’s going to blow peoples brains apart over summer.  Keep your ears out for it folks… It’s gonna be huuuuge.

Sydney’s beXta was due up on stage – however I could have sworn that the last time I saw her, she didn’t look like John Ferris.  According to the “talk” around the club, The B-star missed her flight from Sydney.  Twice.  Nice going Becky!

Not that her absence annoyed many.  John Ferris took the stage and made everyone forget about asking “Where’s beXta?!”, and even played the SENSATIONAL Eurythmic’s track “Missionary Man”.  Jason and Ferris continued playing together for a bit, and Mr Ferris, it has to be said – I salute you for being such a brilliant man, solely on the fact that you played Eurythmics to a packed house at Bass.  I have not seen such brilliance since Stevie B played the Flashdance song “Maniac” by Michael Sembello at Happy to Be Hardcore.  Bravo!!

Points are of course taken off for the horrific Nirvana “Smells like Teen Spirit” remix that was played.  Lucky I was already in the toilet when it was forced onto a few thousand people’s ears, because surely enough; I wouldn’t have made a quick enough dash to throw my dinner up.  It was a Kate Moss moment I’d never like to relive again.  Surely the only person that would be able to appreciate that horrific number (I do believe its actually the Warp Brothers Remix) is Courtney Love, and that’s only because she’s got that much shit up her nose and in her veins she can’t actually hear anything (except the sound of a cash register) properly.  Another song that’s worthy of having its creators stabbed repeatedly in the eyes with bbq tongs.  It frightens me knowing that I’ll never have those 4 minutes of my life back.  At least I’ve lost a kilo or two from the toilet visit though.

Jason Midro played very fluently and technically great, clapping his hands about and causing some serious dancefloor mayhem… It was about 30 minutes into his set that I discovered I lost my bloody pen, and spent the next hour searching for it.  By this stage, the night had ended, people were running to the car park to see if there were any cops with drug testers about, and I was waving goodnight to another amazing Bass birthday.

Congratulations Bass Station, on reaching your 6th Birthday.  I sincerely wish Jason, Mark, and all the very hard working crew and DJ’s all the best for the future, and would like to raise a toast in wishing them another happy 6 more years at the head of their game.  Kudos to you guys… Kudos to the Sound Of Now… And Kudos to beXta for not showing up!!!