Saturday the 21st of May was the farewell show of one of Sydney’s most creative music producers, Meem, at the relatively fresh venue called Marquee. My lady friend and I arrived at around midnight to a sparsely populated Marquee room full of alternate types who refreshingly (for Sydney) cared more about the music than the appearance of themselves.

One of the lads from Bionkworld was pounding the spacious room with his live tech injected beats as I surveyed the space and décor for the first time. Marquee is a neat and easily accessible club, only five minutes drive from the CBD. Therefore I couldn’t understand why there weren’t more feet through the door, especially since I saw posters all over town in the preceding week. However the floor slowly filled as Binonikworld wrapped up his set by paying homage to Led Zeppelin with a fast paced remix of one of their classic groove-rock pieces. He then looped up the original track and set the floor alight in the process.

Meem took to the stage next, humbly informing the growing crowd that he was going to be playing a live set for an hour, and then he would be spinning some tunes. He thanked everyone for coming along for his farewell gig before leaving for a European stint then began the barrage of bassy funkiness that is Meem live.

Meem and his crew had cut out a bunch of two dimensional waving arms which were placed strategically around the room. The two most notable placements of the arms were the large models placed on the two speaker racks that bounded the main stage. The intention of these arms, in the characterised style that Meem is famous for using, was the man waving goodbye for an undisclosed period of time to his Sydney cohorts. He backed those cartoon waves up with real three dimensional waves of his own as he plotted a course of groove ridden beats from behind his laptop and beat machines for the people on the floor to shake to.

If you don’t know what Meem looks I’ll give you the lowdown. He is a bearded, wiry fella with meaty long dread-locks. Think of the paintings you have seen of Jesus through the years with the words Jesus Saves above his head. One could be forgiven for doing a double take when Meem is on stage and assuming that, alive and healthy, Jesus now waves from a stage, has let his hair dread and plays an awesome array of sample-fied soulful funk grooves for his disciples’ enjoyment.

He did not disappoint his disciples on this night. I think it was more a case of the disciples disappointing him. After fluidly plugging through his repertoire of delicious beats which included this writers favourite ‘Bobsya ankle’ he dug through his record collection and treated the rapidly depleting crowd to some of the finest rare soul and funk music that any DJ or music appreciator in the world, let alone Australia, would be more than proud to own. Especially fantastic tracks to hear through the booming speakers were Roy Ayers – ‘Can’t you see me’ and The Emotions ‘Best of my love’.

My lady and I were two of the extremely satisfied fifteen or so people left in the club when Meem decided to call it quits at twenty to four, dropping a soothing rasp voiced Louis Armstrong Jazz number to close (doesn’t anyone stay out past three am any more?).

Meem, much respect to you for all that you do. Let’s hope the European crowds have a little more staying power than the Sydney-siders of this Saturday night as you bring your funk to the world.