It was finally time for the big question to get answered, can Drum and Bass fill out the main room at Home on a Saturday night? If the turnout for Roni Size’s recent Thursday night gig was anything to go by then it was certainly looking good with Drum and Bass superstar Goldie leading the charge. The last time I heard Goldie play it was for the opening night of The Fracture Factory which, like most of Sydney’s big D&B gigs, was on a Thursday and despite the event being free the turn out was still dismal. So despite getting a little worried when I was able to walk straight through security without even a hint of a queue I was pleasantly surprised to find the place packed and rockin when I entered.

The warm-up act was introduced as a new Metalheadz signing from NZ, Rufio and Switch, and I was very impressed with their performance. Switch (I think) had a saxophone and with the sound of it soaring over the 180 beats per minute served up by his partner the dancefloor was launched and the odyssey began. Throwing in bits of hip-hop and ragga and going loco with the decks pulling all manner of rewinds, cuts and other DJ tricks these two were threatening to steal the show. When they dropped Subfocus – X-ray to the delight of the crowd I made sure to take a mental note and look out for them in the future.

Around 2ish I made a trip down the road thanks to Home’s only ATM being offline and returned to find Batman and Robin had hijacked the stage, only Batman seemed to have adopted a vicious London accent and was gripping a microphone while Robin had a mouth full of gold and was busying himself on the turntables.

Right from the word go I felt that this set was going to be something special, according to rumour Goldie himself was turning 40 that night, an old hand to be sure but something that would no doubt be celebrated with his finest selection of tunes. Indeed one got the feeling that he was playing through a stash of his personal favourites. It didn’t take long for the old school vibe to come out (after they ditched the superhero costumes) starting with the classic Shadowboxing. There were plenty of newish sounding tracks to be sure, but he seemed to be favouring big subby basslines and junglist style breakbeats.

The quality of some of the tracks was amazing and when Switch joined him on the sax, the picture was complete. With the sultry sounds of the saxophone over the top the music started to take on a jazzy LTJ Bukemish type vibe until a little after 3 when the really hard stuff started coming out. Never one to disappoint the headz in terms of intensity Goldie let the nasty shit drop and I could sense the volume knobs creeping further towards 11.

Looking at my watch round 3.30 I felt it was only fair that I at least check out the other room and so ventured up stairs fully expecting to find the Breaks room empty. I was surprised then to find it going off just as hard the main floor, with Dopamine just having dropped Kiss My Break a wicked tune of his devising. I stayed for Get Down and had there been anyone less than the godfather himself back in the main room I probably would have stayed a good deal longer. The main floor was starting to look a little emptier but the intensity was only increasing and Goldie showed no signs of stopping. Once it became clear that he would probably be playing a good deal longer than 4.00 I went back up to catch the last of Dopamine’s set finishing on his epic debut release on TCR, Hold You.

Back on the mainfloor there was no doubt now that the volume had increased significantly and it started bringing back bad memories of what happened to my ears last time I saw Goldie at Home (me and everyone else who attended walked out deaf and I couldn’t hear normally for a week afterwards). Other people seemed to be getting the same feeling and between 4 and 4.30 the crowd literally halved in size. As 4.30 ticked past and Goldie was still showing no signs of slowing or turning down I reluctantly joined the queue at coat check and went on my way leaving the man to celebrate into the wee hours.