With all the talk of the growing global status of hip hop, anyone would think you could walk into HMV and pick up some tunes straight off the streets of Katmandu. But you can’t, and it aint necessarily cos no-one there is making the stuff, but rather that no-one here would buy it. Ditto. You can count on one hand the amount of artists from non-English speaking countries that have broken the global market, and DJ Krush is most certainly near the pinnacle. ‘Tokyo’s turntable samurai’ as he was patronisingly branded for Saturday’s gig, came to town with years of experience in moving crowds with his down tempo, leftfield  and fractured beat-melees, and did it all again.

Regal was giving the wrists a good workout as we entered the Gaelic club, still pretty empty at 10.30, as classic US beats got a good showing, interestingly with the only rapping that would be heard at this particular hip hop gig. He warmed up the few in attendance (at this point I was adamant that the low-turnout was ever so slightly related to the request for $50 at the door, yet they soon came in hordes) before Hermitude took to the stage for their particular brand of live, energetic and down-right body-moving music.

Armed with 2 decks, a drum machine, a cd scratcher and a wooden-panelled synthesizer older than yo’ mama (or almost), the Elefant Traks boys put on a fucking stormer. I don’t know if they’re always this good, but the energy of the performance was gold. From the more soulful melodic approach of Cave Styles to the storming bounce of Gusto’s Theme, I was damn happy I didn’t just rock up late for Krush. Anyway, he was pretty impressed, spied bobbing his head and catching pictures from above on his super hi tech miniscule camera, of the like one, or rather I,  might expect a wealthy Japanese electronic music producer to possess.

Regal soon came back to the stage as the masses of Hermitude’s gear was packed away, this time accompanied by the vocals of a young lass by the name of Lizzy. She sang along sweetly to the beats provided, yet never really dealt with the fact that she was at times barely audible, maybe it was a sound glitch, who knows. Anyway, she had a nice voice, but being squeezed between Krush and a set like that from Hermitude can’t have been too easy.

It must have been midnight by the time the time the man in question took to the stage. With traditional Japanese lettering hung on drapes at the side of the stage (quasi-reliable sources inform me these merely read ‘DJ Krush’, ooh.), he got straight into the set in a banging snare-heavy sort of way, and was soon dropping gem’s from the likes of Unkle, though the biggest cheers were saved for his own classics, of which there are a few from his career which must surely be at, if not over, the twenty year mark. Thankfully, it wasn’t a straight up two decks and a mixer set, for this may not have gone down too well what with recent visits from RJD2 and Kid Koala.

He had some kind of sampler on the go, which resulted mostly in any number of machine-gun snare combinations, always twisting it up a little to the pleasure of the Sydney’s beat-connoisseur community. He soon passed the one hour mark he had been billed under, yet continued the set in the same manner. There were up moments and there were down, but on the whole the enthusiasm level of the crowd, and perhaps myself, waned a little the more it went on.

He certainly knows how to hold his shit down so to speak, yet it was, for all intensive purposes, a bit of a chin-strokers night, and when it finally all ended it was a bit like a trip to Canberra. You know it’s important, you know you probably should go at least once in your life, but you’re a little unaware as to whether everyone else had shitloads more fun than you.