The weekend after the mayhem of New Years is a particularly tough one for promoters – most people prefer to save their brain cells and their cash rather than hit the town again. However, with Benny Benassi in Melbourne many couldn’t resist the temptation to shimmy on down to Room for a dance to Italy’s finest. I must confess that due to a wedding I attended that day and the hedonism of Summadayze still knocking me sideways throughout the week I only attended the event to see Benassi and so this review only covers his set.

I arrived expecting to find a busy but by no means packed club – instead I was confronted by a sea of young, up for it clubbers who had clearly decided to break the ‘never go clubbing straight after NYE’ rule. I always feel slightly geriatric at Room as at the grand old age of 27, I am clearly about 5 years older than your average punter there, but the crowd were friendly and clearly intent on having a good time so it really didn’t matter. Ivan Gough was finishing his set as we arrived and it was clear to see that the veteran DJ had the crowd whipped up ready for the headline act. The venue was arranged as it is for Obssession events there with the DJ booth at the back of the club instead of against the top right wall. This creates more of a DJ Worship environment but also means that the atmosphere is much improved. The sound system was excellent as always and I noticed that the DJs had the luxury of 3 CDJ 1000s, 2 1210s and a Pioneer EfX unit – lucky them!

Benassi came on at 2am to thunderous applause and immediately laid down the gauntlet with some tough electro house. The last time I saw Benassi was at Pacha in Ibiza where he was the highlight of the night – no bad feat considering the other DJs: Eric Morillo and Jon Carter! Those that know him and his productions know that they are not in for a subtle, chin stroking musical experience but more a juggernaut of f*cked up, twisted, bass heavy house music with occasional leanings towards trance and techno.

Benassi played for two hours and was simply superb – a ferocious set which included some awesome deep, down and dirty moments. He is also a consummate crowd pleaser and tracks like ‘Sweet Dreams’ & ‘No Matter What You Do’ sent the crowd wild. Clearly he has spent some time on the CDJs as his skills were awesome – looping & teasing his way through tracks and pausing them for dramatic effect. The result of all of this was carnage on the dancefloor – the atmosphere was electric, it reminded me of clubs back in the UK in many ways such was the level of cheering, whooping and clapping that was going on. Benassi was clearly impressed by the reaction and started to communicate with the dancefloor by writing on record labels things like ‘I want to move to Oz’ – of course this heralded more frenzied appreciation!

Satisfaction was played towards the end of the set and was predictably the best received tune of the set although tune of the set for me was the brilliant ‘Changes’ by Chris Lake. And at the end after giving a little speech (which reaffirmed his desire to move to Australia ‘like ze Carl Cox!’) he finished on the timeless classic Born Slippy by Underworld – the club exploded! Andrew Padula looked faintly terrified at the thought of having to follow Benassi and who could blame him?! I was told though that he rocked it till the end….My only criticism of the night is the annoying shout outs that the Room PA continually makes during people’s sets. YES, we know it’s Benny Benassi playing thank you very much! Let the music do the talking…Oh and one more thing – some locks on the bloke’s toilets would be nice. But hey, they are really minor quibbles….

Benassi’s set certainly wasn’t the most clever set in the world but it did what all great sets should do: it set the dancefloor alight. Too many DJs think it’s their job to ‘educate’ people. It’s not. Their job is to make people dance. And Benassi fulfilled this duty with great ease, tones of energy and panache. Satisfaction indeed.