It was everything else but quiet on New Years Day, and Sunbeats at Coogee Bay Hotel was no exception. Arriving there it was like a Kodak moment, with the beach views and blue skies. Add a cold beer, Ben Morris and John Glover, and the NYD partying began. My first discovery of the day was that the ‘Courtyard’ area in actual fact only took up 1/6 of the entire courtyard space, which proved to be slightly claustrophobic as the night progressed with increasing numbers and the unwanted rain. I decided to hang out in the remaing 5/6 of the courtyard and listen to the electro house and funky house tunes from afar whilst enjoying the warmth of the sun.

The clubbers slowly made their way into Selinas throughout the afternoon, and I too eventually made my way in there for Homegrown’s set. I was disappointed to see no effort had been made to ‘dress up’ the venue, although perhaps I have been spoiled one too many times with decorated clubs lately? There was a table where you could purchase a t-shirt in memory of the night, and I happily purchased one at a bargained price and had it signed by myself and a friend for extra, sentimental value. There was no seating, no cloakroom and no bins, which meant I had to hold my jacket and bag, and also had to continuously move plastic cups out of my way so I could dance.

Despite the above, there was an impressive number of people dancing away to the quality electro/funky tunes being pushed out by Homegrown, and then The Potbelleez. As great as the music was, it gained no justice when blaring through the speakers as the bass was too strong and was coming out all distorted and muffled. Nevertheless, I made my way to the dancefloor… only for it to be short-lived. It only took me 20 minutes to become totally fed up with the cup-moving and the neverending amount of people who thought they could walk right through me (and one person who thought they could shuffle through me). Giving up, I grabbed another beer and looked for a wall to lean on, and chatted to friends whilst settling with some foot tapping and head nodding.

After a great set by The Potbelleez, my enjoyment turned to excitement as the familiar faces of Scott Richardson and Cameron O’Shea graced the turntables. Beginning with Fonzerelli ‘Moonlight Party’, they gradually took the set in a more ‘trancey’ direction, including tracks from Armin Van Buuren, O’Callaghan/Kearney and Carte Blanche. The crowd were loving it too, errupting with cheers for almost every track. I caved in and sacrificed my body to the brutality of clubber-barging, so that I could cheer, dance, sing and put my hands up in the air with everyone else.

Scottie and Cameron played an extra half-hour as Judge Jules seemed to be running late. The moment he stepped on stage though, he had the entire room jumping up and down and screaming, and he kept them like this from the beginning to the end of his set. With a set consisting of electro and tech, the energetic Englishman mixed it up with a bit of Ronski Speed, Roger Sanchez, and a few of his own tracks. The set was full of great tunes, and lapped up by the entire club. After being moved (involuntarily) from one side of the dancefloor to the other, I resumed my wall-leaning and chatting for the remainder of his set.

Judge Jules set came to an end and Peewee Ferris and Jumping Jack were ready to begin. As Jules finished up for the night, so too did a noticeable number of his fans. It was their loss though (and my floorspace gain) as JJ and Peewee played a killer set, spanning from tech trance to prog, uplifting and hard – it was exactly what I wanted to hear, and even had the remaining crowd – which was still a fairly decent size – reacting in almost the same way they did with Judge Jules.

To finish off the night it was Nik Fish, Amber Savage, and some quality hard trance tunes. Despite the number of people that were still at the club, it had been decided that the night was to finish up half an hour earlier, with everyone being asked to leave at 2.30am (earlier still if you had decided to go out for a smoke between 2.00-2.30), which was a slight let down as I was enjoying Nik and Amber’s set. Being turned out into the wind and rain, me and my newly purchased t-shirt made the short walk home, leaving behind the first day of 2007, and the long taxi and bus queues. Thank heavens I live in Coogee!