On a blustery winterish night in Sydney, we along with anyone else in Sydney with a taste for fun and fashion, made it along to The Arthouse for the frenetic Kink vs Bang Gang battle. If the line up of fashion setters and Supre enthusiasts out the front was anything to go by, then tonight was sure to be the usual sell-out you’d come to expect from Kink and the Bang Gangers!
Jumping the queue (as us privileged reviewers get to do) and entering, we found ourselves wandering from one room to the other, trying to get a decent spot to dance in this weirdly varied mix of people. In the smaller room, we had a nice beatsy commercial mix, with the Kink kids. As most of the crowd started to get into the swing of things as the Beastie Boys’ ‘Ch-Check It Out’ was dropped into the mix, there were still a few posers up the front directing menacing looks towards people dancing, simply for having the guts to get up and dance instead of standing around stressing about what everyone will think of their faux moves. This scene wasn’t happening for me, so we ventured across the hall and into the enchantment of the room the Bang Gang boys were getting busy entertaining.
The room was bigger; therefore more room to dance and the posers engaged the dark corners and were a little less obvious. It was easy to get through the crowd to find a decent space to dance, which is all tonight really seems to be about, trying to find a comfort zone in the midst of all this craziness and having a damn good time. As ‘Thriller’ blared through the speakers, the crowd bulked up a little, with many people just rudely making trains of about 6 people and working their way through to the front without much consideration for the people already dancing there. It didn’t really matter where you were; this was a common problem most of the night, especially as the alcohol intake of most punters increased.
Either way we still managed to have a ball with the endless mash up of Bang Gang DJs at the decks, swapping and changing, dancing and jumping on each other’s backs. It doesn’t matter what you’re into, these guys are likely to spin it, the crazier, the better and it doesn’t matter what your scene or agenda, it’s rather difficult to watch these guys spin and not have fun. The amount of fun they’re having onstage entertaining the crowd is obvious and it’s little wonder these kids are still the cream of Sydney’s clubbing and fashion crop.
Spinning the likes of Tiga’s ‘Pleasure From the Bass’; Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Take Me Out’; Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girl’s Just Wanna Have Fun’; Detroit Grand Poobah’s ‘Sandwiches’; Kiah’s ‘My neck, My Back’; The Bangles’ ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’; Electric Six’s ‘Danger! High Voltage’ (which had me blushing as memories of pashing Dick Valentine last year came rushing back) and Gwen Stefani’s ‘What You Waiting For?’ in a killer eclectic mix that challenged all in the room to stand still and keep posing. It must have been a hard task, as the entire crowd seemed to be fighting for space on the dancefloor.
As 4am rolled around way too fast, I found it impossible to drag my aching feet from the dancefloor. As we moved closer towards the front (in the direction of the cloakroom), the Bang Gang kids just kept spinning quality track after track until I felt that we were somehow being held captive. So if that’s not a sure sign of who won the battle I don’t know what else would be. Long live Bang Gang, let’s hope they keep bringing us the goods with style for a long time to come!
