This weekend certainly put Finland on the map globally as a country to be reckoned with all things unique in music and stage performance!  Nothing could be closer to the truth with us very lucky South-East Queenslanders having the absolute pleasurable fortune of experiencing first hand the famous Finnish export in Mr Harri Andersson – Proteus!  The current World Number 1 Hard Dance DJ for the last two consecutive years (2004 & 2005), headlined the Brisbane leg of the highly respected Transmission dance event – The Magic City at The Arena Entertainment Complex on Saturday night. 

The highly anticipated leading dance party proudly brought to us by Mystique Promotions also showcased the outstanding talent of Scotland’s Mark Sherry of Public Domain fame, the UK’s Gaz West Live in his Dark by Design guise, and his compatriot none other than Steve Hill.

With my intention of being ‘on the job’ rather than allowing inhibitions to loosen, I arrived  a 9:45pm with my mini entourage who were more dedicated to the harder-edged style of dance music than me.  A non-existent line-up outside the venue, there were more administrative officials than party-goers – or so at first sight it seemed.  Entering The Arena I was really stunned at the stark emptiness of bodies and lack of visuals and especially stage lighting – Syke B2B Baby Gee who were warming up the decks, couldn’t even be seen from the main dance floor.  I’d never seen the Arena so bare – except with the Rush’n clothing brand’s mobile shop at the back of the main floor providing the only decoration and fluoro visuals. 

Not a terribly warm night, soon after my arrival, I noticed quite a few sweaty phat-pant wearing ravers wandering about, so up the stairs I went to check out the set-up and goings on in the other rooms.  The Hardcore room up top was where it was cranking all night long – this was the drawcard for most of the local punters in support of our local boys.  Our own BeDE provided the perfect warm-up for the hardcore enthusiasts with an amazing display of high-energy dance floor moves of flips, spins and various skilful acrobatic feats, it was really hotting up the time Duane MC followed by our hardcore regulars in Seventy-7 B2B Korruption.  These were the guys who were the inspiration for many punters to be at the Magic City; some travelling from as far up as Cairns and as one enthusiastic fan exclaimed (of Seventy-7) ‘He rocks my World!’  With BPMs in excess of 190 (when I could coordinate my stop-watch with my manual counting) it’s any wonder this room was rocking – and it was only after midnight!!

The opposite extreme of the Chillout Room housed Engine 09 followed by Emmy Lou, both with very different styles on this occasion, but creating the perfect vibe for the ‘theme’ of the room and that of the brightly-lit and airy Chillout area of the side.  Content that I’d stayed long enough in each of these rooms to get a feel for what was on offer; the majority of my night was concentrated to the Main Room downstairs.

Following Tranceducer’s harder edge trance set complete with some Israeli flavoured psy – much to my liking, more punters were rocking up past midnight just in time to catch the start of the International acts.  Kicking off with pocket dynamo Steve Hill B2B Nervous, their melodic style of hard trance/dance set the scene nicely for Mark Sherry to add his flavour of ‘Bass in the Place’ – his signature smash hit that raised more than a roar in the crowd, his set was decently solid throughout.  Gaz West with his Dark by Design Live sound of ‘huge-kick, huge bass, huge riff’ belting out was ensuring the temperature rise even further.  Unfortunately due to my finding a mobile phone and endeavouring to have it safely back in the owners possession, most of his set was a void.  For about 10mins I was able to enjoy the uplifting euphoric flavour of Deeplex’s set, commencing with one of my favourites – Lost Tribe’s ‘Gamemaster’, and dropping some nice tunes which included Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’ -  his tune selections were the most pleasurable for me. 

Fortunately for me, I couldn’t have asked for a better preliminary highlight to my anticipation of seeing Proteus take centre stage, definitely being the major drawcard of me to this event.  I wandered upstairs and in an instant was totally gob-smacked, there I was walking directly towards the larger than life instantly recognisable figure – Proteus himself!  Flanked by his diminutive-stature dear manager and close ‘family’ friend Adam LAB4’s wife – Kym, I introduced myself & welcomed Proteus to his Brisbane debut!  Not one for being easily awestruck, I congratulated him on his recent award of World Number 1 Hard Dance DJ for the second year running, to which he was very grateful.  If you were the type quick to judge a book by its cover – one would not be blamed for thinking Proteus was some sort of scary looking freak, from whom you’d much rather keep a safe distance.  For me though, his ‘look’ was my inspiration for my dark-purple highlighted heavily made up eyes & lips and tousled hair.  In my actual conversation ice-breaker I told him I wondered who would be wearing more make-up on this occasion – myself or Proteus, to which his smile reached from ear to ear, lighting up his whole face as he pleasantly laughed. 

A very mild-mannered well-spoken with obvious Finnish accent, he is in fact a much grounded, down-to-Earth man with a serious passion for music of all types (as showcased in his set), and his top-class performance.  Telling me not to expect too much, this humble and modest performer displayed some reserved anxiety; after all he’d played in Perth the night before, and given his high-energy full-on physical delivery of his work, he’s been known to retire before his time was up, due to complete exhaustion!  Normally only taking a 60min timeslot, he was scheduled to give us an extended 75min set.  After more general chit chat and a word to him and his manager about the lack of lighting on the main stage that I thought in the current state would certainly be detrimental to his show, Kym promptly brought the lighting specialist up to speed for what was required.  The time had arrived for Proteus to ‘prepare’ for his performance, so off he went backstage.

The light was perfect as Proteus dressed in tight leather pants complete with chains and buckled knee-high boots, PVC lace-up arm warmers, half-face S & M mask with really long Rasta kind of locks and bare chest adorning his trademark tattoo, graced the centre stage as he spanned his arms with the very powerful, majestic and victorious tune ‘O Fortuna’.    OMG, we were in for a real treat! What a way to make your presence known!

At this moment, the crowd was immediately spellbound and caught up in the grip of our S&M Master from this point forward, with no escape until the end.

Discontent with the lack of stimulation that sometimes accompanies boring techno, especially if you just stand still and mix, Proteus loves the arousal of rock ‘n’ roll, so whips his audience with a little rock concert kind of atmosphere in his sets.  In a matter of minutes, the Master of Hard / Nu NRG had thrown down about half a dozen tunes, in his foreplay of introducing us to the ‘Proteus style’.  In his description “A lot of influence from different kinds of techno music genres… combining the best elements from those together… industrial tracks and elements that create ‘the Proteus kind of’ dark, cyber and same time beautiful atmosphere to the mixes”

Giving it to us hard and fast, and certainly dark, his movement behind the decks as he dramatises the bondage capture of giving us the aural pleasures of his performance is an exciting climactic delight.  Keeping his captors on the verge of premature release, his movement behind the decks is pulsatingly rapid!  Both CDJs and the two turntables were fully loaded at all times, as well as piggy-backing his vinyl (2 records on the one turntable) – time was of the essence and none was wasted changing over vinyl.  Not skipping a beat as he tweaked the mixer into a serious workout, his sharp and highly crafted technical skills of backspinning, scratching and switching between each of the decks was unbelievable and superbly flawless. 

Rarely, did a track go for longer than about 2½ minutes – except when he dropped his very own ‘Hellfire Club’, among others, and when Proteus needed to move about to avoid the blood pooling in his legs, to take a larger inhalation of oxygen, and give his own cardiac BPM a brief recovery.  Absolutely amazed that his locks didn’t get caught on the vinyl and cause the needle to skip is beyond me; in fact the whole marvel of Proteus performance still defies my belief.  Proteus was nothing short of phenomenal!  By far the best performance I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting amongst up-close & personal – ever!

Well done Transmission.  With still the last of The Magic City instalments (Sydney) upcoming this Saturday, 27 May, don’t miss it!