Christmas day unwrapped, the sun is shining on Boxing day – it’s time to party, not that we weren’t before Christmas. It’s just that it seems the people of this glitzy town, myself included, shift into another dimension when the summer sun is shining and the world’s best DJ’s relocate to our shores for an endless array of parties.
Summer Break at Bondi Pavillion was a great opener to the post Christmas events. The Fuzzy lads used the space well with an outdoor stage for the sun soakers who demanded party classic breaks and an indoor tent where the majority of spinners played the fast paced breaks called D& B. The main reason I wanted to be at this event however was to witness Australia’s (well arguably the world’s) most diverse and talented spinner, DJ Dexter from Melbourne who was on the outdoor stage. My organisational skills were not at their best though and I managed to only make it in time for the last ten minutes of his set.
Having seen him at the Livid festival last year I needed another fix of this king of the mash up. He pleased but at the same time surprised this writer by finishing his set quite with close to a track for track replication of his Livid finale. That included Outcast’s ‘The whole world’, The Police’s ‘Roxanne’, Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time after time’ mixed superbly once again into the Timo Maas remix of Azzido da Bass’ ‘Dooms night’ and then to top that off he dropped Rick Jame’s ‘Superfreak’ over Doom’s night for a fitting handover to a lad I hadn’t expected to rock the place as much as he did – Deadly Avenger.
Deadly Avenger, what can I say, a party rocking spinner indeed. From the first drop of Dr Dre vs Punjabi MC he ignited the people with a shining set of old school hip hop. He was enjoying himself immensely as well, that was the key factor. Never taking himself to seriously he dropped hip hop classic after classic that he knew all the words to and demanded the crowd to voice their knowledge with volume disappearance requests. We ‘cleared our throats’ to the tune of the same name and ‘jumped around’ with ‘insane membranes’ to two more tracks you may have heard before. Deadly Avenger will be welcome on our shores for many gigs to come after this prodigious performance I am sure.
Atomic Hooligan took to the turntables next underneath a setting sun. A very unassuming lad he proceed to take up from where Avenger left off, however he was quite partial to touching up the records with some aggressive scratching. He was good at it, but it did become a little grading when he did it every second track. However he was also extremely good at interacting with the people, stepping out in front of the decks to bond. Tracks that went down a treat included a an extremely nice breaks remix of Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy’, The Chemical Brothers – ‘Hey boy hey girl’, another breaks remix this time ‘My My My’ by Armand Van Helden and Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk’.
During long stints at the outdoor stage I would drop in to the tent to hear some tough D&B beats. First female electronic spinner Soto and then Krust and Die held me captive for some time with their intensive D&B beats. The Bristol lads showed how the west country Drum and Bass is done with walls of bass delivered at high volumes. At the same time Kid Kenobi and MC Sureshock dropped some grand nu school breaks on us in the outdoor stage and I had a lot of trouble dragging myself away from the Krust and Die tent to the Kid Kenobi skies and vice versa. A track of note from the kid was a sweet breaks remix of the Mr Oizo track entitled ‘Flat Beat’ from a few years back. Every track Krust and Die dropped was a bass in your face exlposion.
Cut La Roc was up next on the outdoor stage for the last set of the evening. Another unassuming character he showed his talent with great selections and intricate mixing, but wasn’t really one to interact with the crowd like the Avenger and Atomic Hooligan, keeping his head down and concentrating most of his set. His head came up when he knew he’d dropped great crowd pleasers such as the Chemical Brother’s ‘It began in Africa’, ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order and my favourite tune of the night ‘I feel love’ by Donna Summer which he mixed superbly over a broken beat that held strong for quite some time before the track was played in solitude.
Local boys Ritual and MC Antic rocked the D&B tent for an hour after Krust and Die. I dropped in for small spells and enjoyed immensely the wall of sound that was Ritual’s selections underneath the boomin voice of MC Antic. Back on the outdoor stage Jon Wall announced it was time to go and handed over to Cut La Roc for one last spin. The crowd aptly chanted ‘Woohoo’ as he dropped yet another superb breaks remix this time of Blur’s ‘Song 2’. Here’s wishing you a super Summer Break, thanks to the Fuzzy crew for another supremely warm one.
