Jungle and drum n bass hasn’t been around for too long, but it’s been around long enough for ‘legends’ to exist already. ‘Pioneers’, these people are called. In the late nineties when garage seemed to be taking over London’s clubs and airwaves, it seemed that dnb had peaked, and that an inevitable downhill tumble a la techno (at least in terms of popularity) was on the cards. But global centres continue to develop, and Sydney seems to like dnb more each month. Well, that’s the impression you get when a man who really is one of these pioneers comes to town after months of fuss and chit chat.

The Gaelic Club, always better for live music than the deejayed sort, was the venue in which to host the ageing jungle don, and at ten thirty it was looking a little empty to say the least. But despite this, a deejay by the name of Beatnik was mixing up a hell of a storm. I’ve not seen the dude before, but bumping tracks from peeps like Nu:Tone and Logistics were combined with very smooth crossovers in all the right places, regardless of whether there were that many people to take notice. But we did, so watch out for the name.

After this Adelaide’s Beat Smugglers took to the highly elevated stage, complete with live drums, decks, guitar, synth, drum machine and dreadlocked emcee. It’s nice to get some live music when you aint expecting it, and they did a decent job of warming people up for the main act. It wasn’t so much a killer Shapeshifter dirty dance floor bass-rollers vibe, more a mixed up performance of dnb, hip hop, breaks, funk and even rock, if you blocked out the sound of the rapping. Which, I have to say, you wouldn’t wanna do, as the emcee was one of the best dnb emcees I’ve seen downunder; largely intelligible despite keeping the tempo manic.

He was deemed good enough to accompany Grooverider, but not until the Beat Smuggler’s deejay filled the gap in between. He could mix, and he could scratch, but there were a few raised eyebrows at the tracks being deployed; why get all hyped up with a band and then drop the tempo to nu-breaks before the headline dnb DJ comes on? Sorta brought back memories of the Gaelic a few weeks before, when two indy acts had tracks from Snoop’s Doggystyle squeezed in between, although admittedly not as drastic.

But soon enough Grooverider was on stage with the sort of downright relentless set you’d expect. No questions about the mixing, and it almost goes without saying the sort of dnb involved was killer. Loads of recent anthems, killer dubplates brought along for the ride, and tune after tune of dance floor orientated madness. A few rewinds took place on mental tunes such as X-Ray from Sub-Focus, and by now the place really did smell like a gym. Because for all the health benefits of the new anti-smoking rule (I’m sorry Mr. Carr, did I miss the referendum?), everyone coming back inside after the nicotine fix was hit smack bang in the face with the smell of sweaty boys.

Some cynical part of me (and it’s a big part) almost wanted to pick a problem with the set, but there was none. He cleared the way some time after two for Shuey to amply clean up the pieces, and for everybody else to worry about the impending lack of sleep or the absentee excuse most likely to convince.