No-one does funky piano house quite like the Freemasons. Their string of successful remixes, along with the success they have enjoyed with their original work have made them two of the most popular DJs in the world right now.

Adelaide was originally left off the Australian tour schedule, like many other big-name house tours. Clubs like Famous in Melbourne and Kink in Sydney manage to have international house djs like Mark Knight, King Unique, Martijn Ten Velden and Sebastian Leger every single weekend, but sadly not so for Adelaide. A last minute cancellation opened up the Adelaide date to secure the Freemasons here. Although a fantastic opportunity, the lack of notice showed in crowd density on the night. While The Freemasons have enough of a following that they can be promoted on their name alone, somehow this event missed out on major street press and newspaper attention. Perhaps a few radio ads on Nova, or even SAFM earlier in the week could have change the game completely.

Despite the PR obstacle, when I arrived at Garage on this hot Friday night, I was met by a decent sized crowd. There was a certain anticipation inside the venue, which is always pleasing to share. Many of those present had been following the Freemasons since Love On My Mind and Mesmerised, and had been looking forward to this for a long time.

The local support DJs all varied musically, representing a good cross-section of house music. Having not seen Bill Fragos DJ since the Shapeshifters’ gig earlier this year, I was impressed to see that his technical skills have improved significantly. I have always had a problem with Bill’s insistent mashing of live acapellas that he does not have the technical ability to control, letting them wobble in and out of time. His performance this time was much better, leaning to a slightly tougher house sound than the ‘handbag house’ the Freemasons would bring. Mash-ups were really the theme of the night, everyone seemed to have a great idea or white-label to drop!

Bill mixed between some fresh new house, while dropping plenty of dance-floor favourites this year, such as Solu Music’s Fade (any early bets for the number one track in Fresh’s top 92 this year), and Kaskade’s In this Life, as well as a great mash up of Joey Negro’s Make a Move on Me over the monster hit of The Egg – Walking Away (Tocadisco Dub). (The latter act has been announced to tour here with the Future Music Festival in March –ed).

I wandered outside to the courtyard which had filled up nicely, and Luke Lombe, the promoter of the night introduced me to James from the Freemasons. Now this is really the test of a respected DJ. They don’t have to talk to the crowd, and many high profile DJs won’t. But James was honestly one of the most genuine people I have talked to, and gave me nearly an hour of his time. I had a good chat about their success and their tour of Australia. The boys had actually been in Adelaide all week because they had family here, and were extremely impressed with how spacious the city is! Apparently great courtyards like Garage’s are about the size of a bathroom in the UK.

The boys stepped up onto the decks about 1:30, after a short set of tried and true house anthems by Luke Lombe. The comparisons between this night and the Shapeshifters at Tonic are difficult not to draw. Both groups are house producers and remixers from the UK, both played a Friday night, both only had a mid-sized crowd. I think Garage is a much better venue for music like this; it’s a lot more personal, and the bright relaxed layout is more conducive to house events rather than the darker Tonic, which I believe is better for hard dance and dark, smoky urban music.

One of the most unusual moments of the night was when Russell turned the music off during their second song and hyped up the crowd by yelling ‘Adelaide – this is the Freemasons!’ If the Freemasons were to play every one of their remixes, there set would have time for nothing else. They played a great selection of the tracks that have made them a household name in house music circles, both the vocal versions and dub versions. Their technical DJing abilities were as good I have heard – their beat-matching and phrasing were flawless.

It was quite disappointing to see the crowd actually thin-out as the boys played. The dance floor was now filled with a small, but extremely enthusiastic (and educated) crowd. The first bomb that was dropped was their anthem of 2005, Love on My Mind, which had the crowd with their hands in their air and singing along. Seeing James and Russell actually singing along to their own songs brought a grin to my face – its great to see that they still enjoy their own music even after playing the tracks a million times. It was perhaps unnecessary to play Love on My Mind twice, which meant that some of their other remixes were not played, such as their big room sound of Herd and Fitz’s I Just Can’t Get Enough, probably my favourite remix of theirs. It was great to see Roger actually dancing on the dance floor while James played at one stage! The boys stuck with a tried and true piano-driven house formula, including a great mash-up (to tie in with the theme of the night) of the acapella of Shakedown’s At Night over Kid Crème’s always funky ‘Doin’ My Own Thing’, and the dub version of Beyonce’s Déjà vu (Freemasons remix). I enjoyed their set immensely- some fantastic fresh and very funky house, and all this surrounded by people that clearly knew the Freemasons music and wanted to hear it.

Mobin Master stepped onto the decks once the boys were finished. I hadn’t heard Mobin for about a year, and was extremely impressed with the sounds he played. Mobin is clearly a DJ who take great pride in his technical ability, rather than simply juggling the tracks from the latest Ministry of Sound compilation. It was very refreshing to hear Jakatta’s haunting American Dream, a fantastic track that can really change the mood of a dance-floor. I understand this was his own remix. This being said, and with no offence to Mobin, I found it really insulting that the crowd on the dance-floor actually built once the Freemasons finished. Why do people pay money to go and see international djs, and then only come and dance when they have finished?

The Freemasons are artists I have wanted to see for a very long time, and frnakly they did not disappoint. They were genuine, honest and down to earth. They have sold millions of albums around the world, yet can make it to a small Adelaide gig, take time to talk to the crowd, and put on a very energetic show. There is an absolute slew of house artists visiting Australia over the Christmas/New Year period (Mousse T, Axwell, Bob Sinclar, Martin Solveig, Darren Emerson, Kaskade just to name a few) none of which are visiting Adelaide to my knowledge. Let’s hope there’s a change in the weather so we can have a couple more events like the Freemasons!