According to the doorman, Will Saul had only just flown into Melbourne and was making his way straight from the airport to the club as we arrived around midnight. In Australia for the Playground Weekender Festival, north of Sydney, Saul has established his mark on the electronic music scene over the last four years with a number of his own releases and remixes. It seemed pretty simple for Saul the man behind Simple Records to be playing at F4’s club night of almost the same name.

Resident Dave Pham provided the warm up set with a mixture of electro, tech house and techno beats, with smidges of Latin and breaks at times. One complaint was the overuse of the smoke machine, especially early in the night, causing watery eyes and a tickly dry throat. In spite of this, ups go to the bar staff for providing a super-friendly service and glasses of water over the bar. Hitting the decks at about 1.30am, and playing until around 3.30am, Saul mixed up techno, tech house, breaks and electro. Given this was his first tour to Australia, there was some trepidation as to what he would play; however given the quality of past releases and label choices, there was a good degree of excitement and anticipation.

The room was a bizarre mix of drunken boys, techno boffins, very young and very mashed and drunken girls dressed in bad fluoro and skimpy dresses, as well as a few older gals sporting the latest fashions – the shortest shorts you have ever seen (ie. denim cottontails). Now while this may have been entertaining, we all know the presence of camel toe and butt cheeks out the bottom of shorts is never a good look in public, so let’s hope that this fashion very quickly takes a dive back into the archives of 1982 where it belongs.

Saul proved himself more than capable behind the decks, mixing with technique, choosing matching keys and using key progressions, as well as changing tempos and styles throughout. If you were hoping Saul would spin a selection from his label back catalogues, you would be somewhat disappointed though. King Roc’s Welcome To Zion which featured on the Simple Sounds compilation appeared early in the set, and was actually one of the few recognizable tracks from Saul’s Simple and Aus range. It seemed as though he was schooled up on the vibe on the night and went for a more accessible four-to-the-floor techno sound and tempo for the vast majority of the night, and the dub and breaks direction of his earlier music was less prominent. In popular form, he also dropped a few late ’80s and early ‘90s hip house, acid house and rave influenced sounds, particularly towards the end of the set.

While Saul became a little animated at times, especially towards the middle of his set, it was nothing you wouldn’t expect from a headliner DJ. Instead, as his music would suggest, there was a degree of understatement in his overall manner. Venue wise, since re-launching as a techno club on Saturday nights about 6-12 months ago, F4 have added a few décor fixtures and made some minor layout amendments, both of which enhance the room’s atmosphere. The sound system which has always been one of the high points, once again proved it’s worth its weight in gold – even brain shudderingly good at times, particularly by the time Saul knocked off.

Saul gave the audience the soundtrack to lose themselves in – to dance like no one’s watching. However, some of the dance floor seemed to drop off throughout his set, preferring to save their energy for the local Pretty Simple and Discourse crews (who launched their new monthly side room there). Nic Nac pumped up the jam for Discourse, techno style in the back room, to close things off. Thanks to the adjacent verandah smoking area, this room was filled with the noxious fumes of cigarettes and a misty air of sticky sweat. Given the conditions, it was quite an achievement to win over such a crowd, even after a fight broke out. At least the sleazy blow fly blokes which frequented F4 in past seem to have moved on or found another haunt.