Public holidays are fantastic.  Nothing beats having a great time without having to worry about working the next day, which is probably why there were so many smiling patrons at Vamp on Easter Sunday.  When I arrived, Ben Morris was doing a good job luring people away from the weather and onto the dance floor, but it wasn’t until Jaime Doom and his Hoodrat friend were let loose that the crowd really began to move. 

Screaming “Oh my God – it’s techno music!!”, the boys opened with their own edit of Digitalism’s remix of Cut Copy’s “Going Nowhere”, before whipping the crowd into a frenzy with the Justice Vs. Simian anthem “Never Be Alone”.  It wasn’t a technically brilliant set, but as the Bang Gang members have said before – they “don’t do best”, they just make people jump, and Vamp was no exception.  By the time they vacated the stage, the crowd was ready for Sneaky Sound System. 

MC Double D won the masses over almost immediately by reminding everyone what the word “Vamp” means, before launching into a set of the band’s sexy funk-pop.  The seven-piece band was tight, and played well together (I spied Mike from Sydney’s Van She on bass), but Black Angus’ vocals lacked the energy of Double D’s and perhaps should not be featured so heavily on some tracks.  However, newcomer Connie Mitchell is a treasure.  Her vocal range is fantastic, she shares some interesting chemistry with MC Double D and consistently establishes a nice rapport with her audience.  I’ve always felt that Sneaky have lacked certain oomph, but they might just have found it in Mitchell.  Well-known tracks such as “Hip Hip Hooray” blended nicely with newer material like “Tease Me”, and the end result left the crowd satisfied. 

Spinning some older tracks, Ajax quickly seized upon this satisfaction and set about creating some dance floor mayhem.  Guns N’ Roses and Blondie proved to be crowd favourites, along with the Justice remix of Scenario Rock’s “Skitzo Dancer”.  Ajax’s technique reigned supreme throughout the night, executing difficult and creative mixes with minimal error.  “Brothers In Arms” turned out to be a very lonely DJ Damage, with Dangerous Dan apparently overseas on secret Tsubi business.  Bennie held his own quite well though, keeping patrons dancing exuberantly to tunes like Erol Alkan’s “Waters Of Nazareth” remix and his own track “The Acid Never Lies” under the Riot In Belgium moniker.  Damage also featured Dangerous Dan and Van She tech’s rework of Daft Punk’s “Around The World”, which has recently piqued the interest of Paris label Ed Banger Records (Justice, Sebastian, Uffie, etc).

Homegrown closed the night with a distinctly UK flavour, turning the indoor arena into a mini-rave.  Tracks like Dirty South’s remix of Evermore’s “Too Late” and the Boys Noize remix of Bloc Party’s “Banquet” encouraged everyone to attend the after party at Havana, and concluded a very happy Easter indeed.