Peepshow feat. Chuck Love @ The Cross, Sydney (02/12/06)
Charles Darwin once noted that only the fittest survive in a world of a hierarchical food chain. Well, Paul Strange has certainly come face-to-face with plenty of sharks in the fickle land that is the Sydney nightclub scene. Yet, here he is, on the brink of 2007, about to enter his 7th year in the Sydney promotion game, with barely a scratch on his hide.
Sure, he has often had his home displaced, requiring him to pack up his belongings and move to more stable living grounds. Possibly more times than he would desire. You won’t find him lamenting though. On the contrary, a quick glance into his past reveals a journey with all bridges well and truely still in tact. That alone is enough to satisfy any conscience. Add to this the fact that his current housing is situated in a playground. Playground Music, to be specific – a nation-wide touring / booking agency, with the focus of it’s mission statement centring around the one key area – providing quality electronic music to the public. Their tentacles reach far and wide in Australia, but the one we are focusing on here is situated at Sydney’s Kings Cross venue, The Cross, formerly known as Plan B. Playground Music have been instated as the venue’s new promotional company across Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, with Paul Strange at the helm. The most important point to discuss is that Chuck Love was back in an environment where his music thrives – a cosy, intimate venue, immersed in a crowd of true house music lovers. Welcome to the Playground. So, Chuck Love… the man with as many tentacles as Playground Music. At least, that’s what you ask yourself as he digs time and time again into his bag of instruments – is that just one man doing all that? From trumpet to saxaphone, guitar, vocals, and keyboard, one thing is clear when you watch the man play – it’s all about the Love.
Setting up the night were two of Sydney’s elite house DJs – firstly Graham Cordery (promoter of the Soulful House Experience, or SHE, parties in Sydney during the summer months) who was doing a great job not only setting the mood for those loitering around the bar and balcony areas, but also for those already on the dancefloor – which from the time I arrived at around 11:30, was already bustling. Actually, bustling perhaps doesn’t describe the mood in the club that night – more so that it was ‘alive’. In fact, this is a point which makes writing this review somewhat different to how I’d normally do so. Yes, the DJs played fantastic music – John Devecchis taking the pace up a few notches after Graham’s soulful base. John’s garnered so much respect in Sydney since arriving here from England in 2002, and it’s easy to see why – he has a natural presence behind the decks that most other DJs would surely envy. Chuck Love blew everyone away with his musical genius, his live version of his break-out track, ‘Back in my Life’ had me singing with the enthusiasm of an English football supporter (and probably as tone-deaf as an English football supporter). But like the young music journalist in the film ‘Almost Famous’, who had his pen and paper taken away from him in disgust when he was focusing on his page rather than soaking up the performance in front of him, I didn’t make it a neccessity to take note of all tracks played on saturday.
In fact, I knew approaching this night that I wasn’t going to churn out a concisely structured review, detailing track names and DJ technicalities. At first I decided that this was because I knew Chuck Love would play extensively from his own catalogue of productions, and, as a result, the track selection aspect would be somewhat predictable. This isn’t to say that it’s a bad thing, Chuck Love isn’t a DJ per say, he is a live performer who uses the DJ medium to lay a foundation for him to perform over. Anyway. I have now decided that saturday night wasn’t neccesarily about celebrating the DJs, more so that it was about a loyal, supportive crowd coming out to celebrate one of the most respected promoters in sydney. Yep, Paul Strange might have been running around in the background keeping things running smoothly, but he was the real reason the club was ‘alive’. It’s said there is a phenomenon that states everyone on the planet can be linked back to any one individual through 6 degrees of seperation. Well I’d say the links of seperation back to Paul throughout the club on saturday would have been 2 at maximum. This was a house party – pun intended.
As with Paul’s opening night at his previous stomping ground, Strangeways at The Terrace of Home Nightclub, this night was a raging success. Paul’s legions of supporters all came out of the woodwork for it. It is now the tireless job of Paul and his team to build upon this success and ensure Peepshow at The Cross secures itself as THE destination for quality house music on saturday night. Like always, he has my full support.
ewokie says...
Well written. Sounds like it was a good night.
Underwater says...
Cheers mate. I must admit, I spent a little time last night reading through the reviews for the last few weeks - the quality has definately gone way up since I last browsed through them.
Devecchis says...
Thanks for your kind words Ryan. I am sure that Paul feels the same as well. Your support is ALWAYS appreciated. And intelligent, passionate support at that. Well written.