Pharmacy pres. Transmission Magic City @ QBH, Melbourne (27/06/08)
There are many pros and cons about holding events at Melbourne’s Queensbridge Hotel AKA QBH. Pro – it boasts an excellent floor layout and stage set up. Con – there are pockets around the venue were the sound quality is compromised, if you’re not feeling up to braving the packed dancefloor. Pro – reasonable bar prices and quick service. Con – a crowd that can often seem to consist of aggressive and rude partygoers who can really piss you off. As infuriating as the latter factor is, because of the the fantastic lineups we enjoy from Pharmacy, you can still have an awesome night thanks to the DJ’s performances and good company.
And it was at this very Melbourne location hosted Pharmacy’s event Transmission on the 27th of June, featuring a lineup that plucked international DJs from different genres and arranged them together to created a night that truly escalated from soft to hard. At my arrival at 12:30am our queue moved quickly inside, only to be greeted by an overcrowded stairwell with traffic chaotically going in different directions. The huge club was full and energized by the sounds of Gleave, and the anticipation of John ‘00’ Flemming who was due to play at 1am. While there was those afore mentioned questionable characters in the crowd, once you’re able to secure a safe spot in the middle of the dancefloor, you could appreciate the excellent sound and view of the performers on stage. The stage had the venue’s standard lighting and visual setup which is outstanding, compromising of a couple of mild green lasers, Greek columns, wings of lights and three large screens for visualizations.
Gleave’s set appeared to have a minor impact on the crowd as most of them were standing still, with only a few people having a boogie to the disjointed techy tracklist. He appeared to be playing it safe by mixing in a reserved and boring way, later concluding with the attention-grabbing track Three Drives Greece 2000 (Marcel Woods remix) to send the punters into roaring hysteria. At this point, the floor was crammed full with the most diverse blend of ravers I’ve ever seen; all waiting for one of the world’s leading and pioneering DJs John ‘00’ Flemming.
There’s a reason why this man draws a crowd, and on this night, he didn’t fail to prove why. As he took the floor he craftily continued on with the techy sounds that Gleave played, and kicked off his set with slowish tech infused psytrance. With effortlessness and imaginative mixing skills, he managed to layer track after track whilst progressively building upwards in energy and speed. The techy psy then eventuated into a deep, whomping style of psy that had twanging, tribal melodies fused with harder kicks that incensed the passionate fans even more, creating a stir of movement for a solid hour. Duvdev’s Now is the time signaled a joyous cry from the dancefloor, and J00F knew it was time to shift onto the next level of psytrance, and thus incorporated some melodic tracks to lead to the end of his travelling set. J00F undoubtedly possesses abilities that every good DJ should have: charisma, skill and excellent track selection. He oozed genuine passion for what he was doing, and that vibe transferred itself onto his dedicated following. As his set wound to an end, J00F dropped the timeless bomb Netherworld by LSG – which stunned the crowd in its wake.
Towards the end of his performance, two other DJs were onstage pushing and poking at the mixer even though it was quite obvious J00F wasn’t finished. What ever happened to respect? Admittedly, J00F had played over time but his set justified it. These two DJs were Bas & Ram from the Netherlands, and it was a less than endearing way to kick off the set. Getting into things, one half of the duo began with some techy trance, before the other half played Talla 2xlc’s track Carry Me (Martin Roth Full On Trance Remix). Then we got another techy track, followed by another trancy tune from Sean Tyas called One More Night Out. This pattern continued and we began to see that each of these guys had a different agenda for the set, but ahd failed to discuss it beforehand. As we waited around for Kamui to come on at 3:30am, we ventured into the Interview room to be greeted by the magical stylings of Melbourne’s Ben Evans. In an perfect world, Ben would have played straight after J00F in the mainroom because he would’ve continued the stream of psychedelic quality that was being exuded.
Kamui are two well known and well loved boys in Australia, and you can be assured that the German duo always provide a tight, bass-smashing tasty set with smiles on their faces. Recently, Kamui have been laying low with their productions, only to throw out some new tracks to our ears on the evening with a set that had us all rocking. We got to hear a new remix of the classic by Human Resource Dominator, as well as a remix of SIA’s The Girl You Lost to Cocaine, Kamui’s remix of Shadow of the Beast, their own tracks Arena, Go Away, Werkzeug, Spielzeug, Electro Slut, and to close they dished out a mashup of Walt’s Let the Music Play with Marcel Wood’s Advanced. The friendly and happy-go-lucky guys undisputedly love playing in Australia, and gave us a memorable set.
Next up was Italy’s most popular hardstyle DJ Technoboy. At this point in the night, the crowd had significantly shrunk as the music got harder and harder. As of late, Technoboy has been producing some tracks that hadn’t been so well received, so fans who had been following him closely remained skeptical about his set. However, he surprised us all by opening with a remix from a fellow Italian – The Age of Reverse Bass (Activator Remix). The bouncy yet fun track was a promising sign for the set, as was his next choice Star Creatorz Killzone. Herein he delivered his new track with the Aussie girl Shayla called Oh My God, a cheesy, bouncy yet hilariously entertaining song. However, things slowly plunged downhill for me as dropped nustyle tracks like The Nasty Boyz Angel and his own Rage. For me personally, this is the epitome of offensive music. Enough said.
The Noisecontrollers are a powerful, relatively new talent from The Netherlands who are producing some of the best hardstyle and nustyle alongside the leaders in the genre at the moment. Their dedicated fans had stuck out the psy, tech trance, hard funk (as Kamui describe it themselves) and cheese to travel through to 4:30am, and they were not disappointed. From the word go, no one was spared from the brutal track selection predominantly consisting of their own productions such as Shreek, Venom and Aliens. Their edits and remixes bowled us all over too, such as their edit of Crump, Dj Zany’s Thugz (Noisecontrollers Remix) and the Donkey Roller’s Followers (Noisecontrollers Remix). Their set began to wind up, but the ruthlessness was unrelenting with Tatanka and Zatox’s track Scary Track, and a first for Australian shores, hearing DJ Zany & MC DV8’s mind blowing track Wilde Guille Bas and closing with SMD’s Just Like You. Their set was perfection, in epic proportions.
A tired and weary few remained to hear Dj Hellraiser wrap the night up with some dated but enjoyable hardstyle, only to be shut down early. He treated us to some hardcore to close, and we were reassured that he’s still got that ability to smash it out like he used to. Overall, the night brought a curious combination of excellent performances from some of the DJs, and annoyance from certain disrespectful punters in the crowd. It’d be nice not to have to endure the latter, but at the end of the day those two elements cancel each other out. Big props to the Pharmacy crew, and hopefully they’ll continue to tour such talented international and performers because on July 27th , hundreds of people loved Transmission; it was a job well done.
vdumble says...
Transmission was a great party, the music was a good contrast of the softer and harder styles- my favourite DJ for the night was Technoboy, that was some of the most banging hardstyle I have ever heard it was awesome!! Being a Hard Kandy regular, I would have to say that there were a lot of wankers there in the crowd, I have never seen a punch on in all my years of partying. Too many wogs with their shirts off, but hey I'm there for the music so everyone else can fuck off for all I care.
Rocca says...
i had great fun since the only reason i was going was to see j00f, had no idea who any of the others were but i thought gleave and kamui were pretty good :) "Pro – reasonable bar prices and quick service. " you think $7 for a carlton draught is reasonable? :p
loopi says...
haha rocca, i didn't realise draught was that expensive, but vodka is cheap so i was happy, lol