The second week of what is shaping up to be an awesome month of Drum and Bass for Sydneysiders, with Goldie last week and Ed Rush and Optical set to play next week, Austrian uber producer D-Kay was coming to Australia for the first time. He was joined in Sydney by NZ stalwarts Bulletproof and one of the finest MC’s in the business Stamina.

Like lots of others, I’d never heard of the venue (Hermanns) before but with easy directions we were soon following the tell-tale boom thwack round the corner at Wentworth to be pleasantly surprised by 5 foot high images up on the wall above our heads and a nice garden area fenced off for use. I got there relatively early around 10ish and the place was still practically empty but I was very impressed with the set up. The outdoor area was large and nice with a big sound system to boot and inside was spacious with more awesome looking speaker stacks. I was even more overjoyed to discover that you could purchase imported beers for a mere 5 bucks a far cry from the usual 10 dollar nightclub policy.

Foreigndub provided a nice backdrop for beers and conversation while the party filled up although when Semper Fi got on the decks at 11 he started cranking some of the hard stuff. The whole night was structured to finish quite early with D-Kay on at 12 and Bulletproof at 1.30, lucky for me that I turned up early because set times weren’t posted anywhere that I could find.

When the last of Semper Fi’s qausi industrial floor shakers petered out and Stamina got on the mic the vibe lifted dramatically. The numbers were well below par but the dancefloor was full and crankin for D-Kay’s first tune. The set was very nicely structured, there were harder tracks sprinkled throughout but with the vibe he seemed to be getting from the crowd and venue the music ended up on a cruisier note. D-Kay is known in his production for the seemingly endless amount of variety he brings to his work with strong releases in all styles and sub categories of Drum and Bass and one gets the feeling that his DJing shares this common virtue. I felt the set could have gone many different ways and the first half hour of it pretty much did, until as a good DJ should he locked onto the mood and style that would best suit the night.

The real highlight for me though was MC Stamina. I’ve often viewed D&B MCs as a mixed blessing, a good vocal can add a lot to the music but more often than not it gets overdone and especially with the style adopted by most MCs, it can sound really repetitive. The other problem is a complete inability to understand a word being uttered. Stamina needless to say did not suffer any of these problems and instead was a shining example of what MCing should be. He knew exactly what to do with sparse phrasings or crowd encouragements when needed and only launching into rhyme at the most opportune moments. His skills were so perfectly tuned to the music any time he opened his mouth it sounded like a part of the track. But the most amazing thing was the clarity, after a little fiddling with the sound and for some reason more so on the outside speakers you could actually understand almost every word being said. It really was a shame that there weren’t more people to witness this event but in a way it helped make the night more friendly and intimate.

Bulletproof closed the show, and was just as impressive though his style was definitely more hard-edged. For most of his set we were down to about 20 people on the floor, but the tunes were so slammin it didn’t matter. Lots of Upbeats stuff with plenty of dark, twisted morphing basslines a la Noisia . It’s a style of Drum and Bass which I always enjoy and this was a fine hour of it.

I left at 2.30 without seeing the night officially close but with the set times billed to finish at 2.30 and the numbers dwindling I don’t think I missed much. All up yet another example of everything set up right for a great night, some amazing artists, incredible lighting and sound, a great venue, cheap drinks and yet a small crowd. It’s such a shame to see but a harsh reminder to promoters and party goers alike that advertising gets numbers whereas production values only get good reviews.