The August Belfast edition offered the Melbourne die-hards another chance to escape the grind of daily life and enter the illusionary world of old-skool debauchery for an evening. This event offered an all Australian line-up, headlined by Adelaide’s HMC. A large contingent of regulars from the ITM forums promised to support the event adding an extra dimension of anticipation to the evening. With a significant contingent of friends in tow, I arrived to Billboards at 11.30 pm, finding a clear spot close to the action. To my surprise Eric Powell was on the decks, and it seemed the Belfast DJ’s had gone more high tech than usual with Pioneer 1000’s, Ableton and Final Scratch/Serato in full force. Eric Powell was warming up the crowd with tracks such as Blue Monday (New Order), Crispy Bacon (Laurent Garnier), and Move any Mountain by the Shamen. His set diverged across deep Detroit to some early crowd pleasers to encourage more action on the dancefloor.

At 12.00 am Mark James took over and instantly the vibe changed up a gear, with many crowd pleasers being delivered such as Yeke Yeke (Hardfloor Remix), Energy Flash (Joey Beltram), Passion (Gat Décor) Red 2 (Dave Clark) and Marmion, Schoneberg reverberating the venue. Mark added a few effects and change ups to the original tracks through new technology which created a unique energy to his set. To his credit, he really got into the night by dancing and revving up the crowd. He closed his set with Energy 52 Café Del Mar, which set the scene for HMC’s entrance.

Time was moving fast and slowly but surely the party was getting to the energy level that I could appreciate. HMC opened up with Jungle Brothers House You, leading into other classics such as Strings of Life Derrick May, Expansions Move Your Body and A Guy Called Gerald Automannik. Having snuck out for a smoko I had also heard LFO LFO and CJ Bollands Horsepower was dropped. Lets just say cigarettes were neglected throughout the night as a result of not wishing to miss out on another favourite. HMC kept dropping bomb after bomb with Moby, Go, Bizarre Inc. Playing with Knives, Green Velvet The Stalker, and towards his close, HMC LSD.

The crowd appreciated HMC’s diversity moving from very early 19990 through to 1995. Richie Rich followed up with one of his usual Belfast oldskool sets, including tracks such as Acperience, Hardfloor, Melt Liquid and EZ Posse Everything starts with an E. Both HMC and Richie were keeping the vibe of the venue moving nicely. After Ritchie’s set significant numbers of the crowd dispersed, and Jeff Tyler was left to bring it home. It seemed the last remnants of the crowd were up for a classic Jeff rewind however were given a different, more eclectic experience. Jeff did play Inner City Big Fun which is always nice at the end of the night.

It was great to meet up with many of the ITMers from the Old Skool forum including lidremover, Tsar Bomba Mix, Anja and DJNeo. There were also tonnes of old faces in the crowd who had crept out of the corners of society for another Belfast adventure. For me Mark James was on the money, followed closely by HMC and Ritchie. It took a while to get used to the new venue, and overall the party was lower key than the usual New Years Eve spectacle, however everyone in attendance seemed to have a lot of fun. See you all at the next instalment.