At 11pm when I rock up to Cooneys, a club situated in the heart of Wollongong and well known its regular visits from international DJs, I found the crowd was already starting to make their rush on the club. The resident DJ was feeding the few people on the floor with some hard electro tunes and the rest of the crowd was making sure they were getting quickly soaked with beers and spirits, ready to put an end to a hectic week that had just passed them by.

Quality dance music was already banging out of the club even before the guest DJ had stepped up, raising my expectations for the evening one bar higher. And I was now eager to see how the guest DJ would react to the Dirty South mix of A Higher State of Consciousness being dropped so early in the evening. In this respect the Wollongong regular had failed the important task of a warmup DJ: providing the international guest with space to drop the big peaktime tunes. It’s a bit risky to get the sound levels rising to peaks so early, but maybe that’s just me.

So, here I am walking around in the club snapping off some mug shots and drinking my beer simultaneously. From talking to a few people from the crowd, I could tell that they were all here to see Sharam Jay doing his thing behind the decks. Second beer down and talking to my friend I see the man himself walking in. Shielded with a jacket to protect him from the freezing cold, a UDG bag on his back and smile on his face, he walks slowly and calmly towards the booth. Within ten minutes he was ready with his headphones and case next to the players, and the bouncing electro just faded away beat by beat by beat. He kicked things off with a minimal tune that stayed in my head all night and kept playing. The best part was that even though the packed crowd on the dancefloor had enjoyed the big electro tunes, they found these deeper sounds equally as good.

I was still hovering with my camera, clicking one shot after the other trying to get the best ones through the smoke and scanners all about the place. By around 1am it was mayhem on the dancefloor, the crowd still flowing in and Sharam playing some pumping electro by that stage. I was standing inside the booth, watching him tweak the knobs while being at one with the crowd at the same time. He had a big grin on his face, clearly showing how much he was enjoying playing the tunes. During the peaks he would whistle to the crowd, and start clapping along with the beats. I must admit, it was real good to see the man enjoying his music.

By the time he started pumping out some awesome rock remixes, he was completely owning the crowd. Before beginning his career as a DJ, Sharam was a part of a rock band and still listens to quite a lot of bands apparently. I guess he wad really locked into what the crowd was wanting to hear at that point of time: it wasn’t electro, techno or breaks, but pure rock. I don’t listen to rock much, but it was still fantastic to hear him playing some well known tunes to the crowd.

He wound up at around 2am and with the knobs back to zero, he handed it back to the resident DJ who continued from there playing electro house. Even though he played a little different from what I was expecting, I was still happy to learn from Sharam that rock and club music could hang out together for the evening! With his King Kong record label that he runs outta Germany and his many remixes and productions making an impact around the world, Sharam Jey does not just play for the crowd alone; he plays for himself too and he loves it!