Sooo . . . . Saturday. Horribly packed Valley Mall, hordes of pissed footy boys, girls who seem to think the Homer Simpson make-up gun is the pinnacle of class and awful taxi lines to boot. Why do we head out then? Well that might be because it’s fun to watch the grand circus roll out but I’m of the opinion that it may be because the action in and around the Valley is so damn good that everyone wants; nay, needs a slice of it. You can argue and detract all you like but it is what it is. Fortunately however, things have a habit of changing and one of those places in the Valley that has done so like the wind is a little old church called Mass.

Amongst (surely) a good few other names it’s previously been called Heaven, The Rev and even for a short while Echelon. Whilst it may be a little sacrilegious to turn a church into a club the fact remains that they are built to sound amazing so changing the hymns for the House is surely a good thing right? Some would argue that they are one and the same for parts of our generation but I digress; whatever the building had been, what it is now is a kick arse venue for dance music. Good sound, good lighting and a good space. The only problem it seems has been the attempt to fill it. So it’s with great pleasure I announce that ye ole’ clever promoters at Kink have done a blindingly good job in getting Canadian wunderkind Deadmau5 to play their event as it broke in Mass with one hell of a bang!

So what of the lad? Well lets start at the beginning. Brisbane favourite Cosmo Cater was playing warm-up for Deadmau5 and unfortunately around 11:20pm or so things weren’t looking too peachy. The main room was rather sparsely populated and despite playing appropriate enough progressive house at a reasonable tempo, the floor wasn’t really warming too much for Cosmo. It appeared he was having a little trouble working out where the crowd was going and the early stages of his set reflected that. But persistence payed off and by about quarter past twelve the floor had filled and the punters finally connected with where Cosmo was leading them and filled the floor with a kind of gusto which belied their previous indifference. What was once deep and David K esque in sound became gradually more aggressive as the bass lines got nastier and the drums bigger. Cosmo made a sterling effort of a tough room leaving Deadmau5 with a considerably easier task ahead of him.

It turned out to be a lot easier than expected though as it seemed that every single punter knew of at least several Deadmau5 tunes as every mix from one to the next elicited the same stupendously huge response. For an artist with a career forged by his own hand in the dank recesses of the Internet this was no mean feat and certainly taught a lesson to those who doubt it’s validity. Deadmau5 is likely the archetypal next generation International DJ and a peek into the booth gave some insight. What was billed as a live set was actually much closer to a blurring of DJ technique and electronic performance. Playing sequences of loops from the now common place laptop PC running Ableton Live and the much less common monome open source contoller (a very sci-fi bank of flashing switches), Deadmau5 opened his set with the uplifting melodics of Faxing Berlin.

What followed was a comprehensive annihilation of the dancefloor with his set never straying far into the electro house recesses of his back catalogue keeping instead to a much better received progressive he so well produces. A favourite for played for every punter, Deadmau5 worked through Arguru, Vanishing Point, Jaded and his remix of Jorgenson’s Untitled with some heavy mixer abuse to the end result of a great many smiling faces. It remains to be seen how much longevity there is in Deadmau5’s ‘early meets better parts of late D.Ramirez-esque’ sound but there is no doubt that for now at least he is a total dance floor destroyer and gave the Brisbane crowd two hours of sheer bliss.

The three o’clock slot is always a tough one for any DJ playing in Brisbane but Murray Brown ably carried on the vibe despite the inevitably dissipating crowd. In what was a set I personally have wanted to see from him for sometime, Murray played tunes worlds away from what anyone who has seen him at larger venues would expect; it was underground baby! The usual electro house was ditched for the likes of Valentino Kanzyani’s remix of Nathan Fake’s Outhouse and the outright wackiness of Samim’s Heater. Even a remix of Quench’s classic Dreams got an airing which had at least a few punters blood flowing.

By four in the morning though it was time for me to retire for an obligatory grandad nap only to get up for work the next day and follow it up with the Sunday Roast. Don’t you just love a silly weekend?