Roni fucking Size. It’s very easy to relentlessly keep bigging up artists that have already established themselves as major players. Each and every night in this city there are any number of talented and able DJs tearing up a storm from hip hop to trance, but some people only make it out for the big names, and that’s certainly understandable. Too frequently though, overseas DJs rock up and drop lack-lustre sets with little or no enthusiasm for anything but the paycheck. How far removed Roni Size and Dynamite were from this outlook.

The sound was at blistering eardrum shattering levels as we entered Home, something which leads me closer to permanent ear damage upon each visit. I’m not sure if I totally agree that louder equals better, especially if I can’t make out a word the mc is saying, but the kids seem to like it like that, so who am I to say? Graffiti adorned the walls as some effort was made to accommodate street cred like your granddad giving you hi-fives, same as it was last time I checked dnb at Home for last year’s visit by DJ Hype. Anyway, Murda 1 and Joose were warming up, followed by Ritual and ALF, who amongst other things dropped a few classic anthems to seemingly educate the diverse crowd. A clanger or two went unnoticed as the crowd salivated in anticipation of the undisputed number one drum n bass DJ, accompanied by an MC equally at home on top of a junglist, hip hop or ragga tip. You could have made it to the little room at the top where there was hip hop and hard breaks on offer, but I’ll be mighty surprised if there was more than a handful of punters in there come 1 o’clock when two fifths of Bristol’s Reprazent crew took to the stage, and got straight into things.

With a diverse set consisting of bouncy jump up, tech/step, soulful dnb and all things in between Roni effortlessly mixed his way between styles at high speed, stopping only to whet people’s appetites. When he took a lifetime to drop Brown Paper Bag you could see turning the party out is what he does best. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a great deal of focus on Dynamite himself, which is a pity as despite the fact his solo album was a little weak, he really is a wordsmith of the highest caliber. But he rode along the swinging beats, switching from slowed down rapping to several-syllables a second junglist rhyming. They went on and on, with rewind after rewind pushing them way past the designated 3 o’clock cut off point. It got more and more intense as more and more tunes were squeezed into the remaining minutes, and there was even a slight mixing fuck-up at the end, but no one seemed to, or wanted to, notice.

It was a killer set by a duo living up to their hype, and what with the swarming they received from fans at the end you could have been forgiven for thinking it was a Backstreet Boys concert. But they returned the love Sydney’s burgeoning drum n bass community showered upon them and will no doubt continue to impress on the rest of their tour.