“Greetings, and welcome to the Smirnoff Experience.” This sounds ordinary enough, but coming from a man wearing heavy makeup, a garish red striped suit and a big stupid grin lent a touch of vaudeville to a night that begun with more than a bit of mystery. Held at the old Metro for an exclusive audience of winners, we were in for a real treat with the likes of DJ Yoda, Infusion and Dexter’s new outfit Grrilla Step. But tasty tunes weren’t the only thing we had to look forward to. Delectable delights and daring drinks were the order of the night, with bar and wait staff rushed off their feet as punters did their best to get the very most out of the experience! The vodka slushie lime stand was a big success for many.
Dexter took to the decks in the main room with the intention of introducing crump – a high-energy style of music that you might not have heard before – to the masses via his new group Grrilla Step. The sound is hard to describe, oscillating between thumping breaks-heavy tech, through to staccato-like stabs at psy-trance, but whatever it was, it got his accompanying dancers moving. Never before have I seen violent thrashing done so gracefully. These dancers were aggressive, pumping and popping their bodies in a manner that suggested they were really getting into it. The crowd seemed to enjoy it too, as after the dancing on stage ceased, the floor filled with people trying to replicate the moves they’d just seen. And Dexter indulged them, warming up the crowd beautifully before DJ Yoda took to the decks.
Yoda has been described as one of the top-ten DJs you must see before you die, and with his spectacular audio-visual show, it was easy to see why. With an extravagant, multi-tiered opening, Yoda was soon blending Destination Calabria with Run DMC. He played like a man possessed. Punters found themselves dancing to the Super Mario Brothers theme, The Simpsons and a myriad of Top 40, hip hop, and whatever else he felt like unleashing upon us. With such a sound pastiche, it would have been easy for a lesser DJ to lose the crowd in amongst all the noise. But despite the changes in tempo, rapid switching of tracks and more genres than you can poker a chinstroker at, the crowd danced! Half the fun of it was trying to recognise tracks with my friends, and many a high-five came out when Yoda dropped yet another monster.
The visuals were a real treat too. Reworked snippets of Star Wars, The Big Lebowski, Anchorman and The Inside Man were just some of the movies I recognised amongst the moving collage. Yoda hit us up with some Australiana too, with Chopper from the Ronnie Johns Show making an appearance as well as an Australian soap wedding montage featuring scenes from Neighbours, Home & Away and E-Street. My only complaint regarding the visuals was the quality of the screen behind Yoda, it was much inferior to the scenes projected behind the crowd, which often saw people with their backs to the DJ. Yoda teased us out with some dubstep, closing with Benga’s Night before some rapturous cheering from the crowd.
As the evening rolled on towards 2pm and the crowd started to thin a little, it was time for the Smirnoff Experience to draw on one remaining act and wrap up what had been an amazing night. It had been fours year since they’d last played together, but for a one off special Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton were reuniting on stage as the Jedi Knights, continuing the ‘Star Wars’ themed saga started a few hours earlier. Beginning their set with the now legendry 20th Century Fox fanfare and the horns from the opening of the Star Wars theme, we knew we were entering into what was to be something of a sound journey to a galaxy far, far away. There was no time to take in the view though because within seconds the boys were taking a trip into their acid, old School, hardcore roots rolling back the years to the days of Outer Space by the Prodigy and Playing With Knives by Bizarre Inc. What could we do but put our heads down, yell and set our fancy footwork into action, this was obviously going to be a set to get us moving.
And it was, all the way through! With Tom MCing every so often to keep the interaction going, the Jedis deftly moved us through their years of DJing by playing us classic after classic: Voodoo Ray, Papua New Guinea, Sweet Harmony and Don’t Go, they all got smashed. Then with a simple question of “Do you like bass?” from Mr. Middleton, they stepped it up a gear, cranked up their vinyl and hit us with 25 minutes of scorching drum n’ bass classics. Big whoops from the crowd ensued as the sound clash rolled on into the last 10 minutes of their hour set.
The Jedi’s kept up the blistering pace until the end, with declaration of ,“We have one more track for you.” And they then polished off what was a fantastic musical extravaganza with arguably the greatest techno track ever made, Derrick May’s Strings of Life. What a finale. Thankyou Mr Smirnoff. How do we score tickets for next year?
Written with assistance from vinyllicker.
wilbarrett says...
Was a really enjoyable night, so different to other events i've been to, and good review but you forgot Infusion, who were also ace, first time i've seen them live.
samwiseb says...
Yeah you forgot the people who smashed it most!