2008, Chicago house and a packed, sweaty club. These are three elements that aren’t commonly brought together on a Saturday night in Sydney, particularly since the Monkey Tennis crew vacated their monthly residency at Candy’s Apartment. However, November 1st was a date when 500 or so close friends came together to enjoy Chicago house in all its glory and fun, in a very sweaty Oxford Art Factory. It was a brilliant night where three fine house music selectors, including the one and only Mark Farina, engaged happily with a crowd that was well up for what was being dished out.

While prior commitments didn’t allow me to arrive in time for Simon Caldwell’s set, the fact that I’ve been blown away by dozens and dozens of his sets over the years meant I wasn’t surprised to hear that his performance had been carried out with ease and finesse. Smooth, deep, different and balanced were some of the complimentary adjectives that were thrown his way by those who had arrived a little earlier. With Illya on the decks when our crew was arriving, we descended into the Oxford Art Factory post haste, stopping only briefly in the middle bar to obtain a much needed beverage while the room’s in-house Sydney DJ showed that he’d failed to grasp a proper idea of what should be played late on a Saturday night (sadly, it’s something that’s fairly typical for our city’s music selectors). Thank goodness for Illya in the main room, bringing some credibility to the proceedings.

The main room was brimming with punters, all bumping along to Illya’s trademark solid, bouncey house music. His blistering work on the EQs, smooth use of acapellas, and his tricky layering of two copies of the same tune all meshed together in a tight but suitably restrained package. It resulted in a warmup set that was so impressive that I doubt even Mark Farina himself gets to enjoy all that often. However, Illya wasn’t there to impress Farina, he was there to warm up and work the floor, and there wasn’t a single moment where the highly responsive dancefloor wasn’t smiling, shaking and sweating to the sound pumping out of a sound system that had improved tremendously since my last visit for Dixon and Ewan Pearson.

Testament to Illya’s following, a ruckus of cheers erupted when he dropped his own track Pusstime. It certainly did seem an old crowd had emerged from the woodwork for the evening, harking back to the familiar faces from the days of The Globe and The Terrace. But while the ears were being treated to some excellent music, the non-existent status of the venue’s air conditioning became difficult to ignore as a packed and enthusiastic dancefloor stirred up some heat. Some reckoned the heat put a dint in their enjoyment of the evening, but I couldn’t help but feel it added the final touch in creating a evening reminiscent of the time when house music was born – a group of music-loving people out to have fun, a sweaty venue and enough hollering and hooting to create proper interaction between the floor and DJ.

So eventually the question begs – how exactly was Farina’s actual set? I’d personally been of two minds about Mark Farina prior to this gig. Both his greatest strength and weakness is that he’s a DJ that brings limited surprises to the table. There’s a number of things I’ve come to expect – some funk-inspired Chicago house, a pinch of acid, and an occasionally overly generous serving of hip hop and RnB bootlegs, all stirred up with some pretty tight mixing. When the recipe works, it’s quite addictive but if the balance isn’t quite right, it’s just another house that’s unlikely to represent some of the fresher ideas floating around in house music today.

Fortunately for all on Saturday night, his refined approach brought a nice dose of Farina magic, never waning and always engaging. A techy edge was cleverly integrated into the proceedings and the acapellas and bootlegs were used sparingly – an approach that gave Jurassic 5’s Golden and Methodman’s Tical and even Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On some space to breathe, ultimately allowing them a far greater impact than when they’re heavily relied upon. He also threw down some remixes of some classic jams like Markus Nikolai’s Bushes and well as DJ Sneak’s anthemic You Can’t Hide From Your Bud. The good balance between these soul and funk infused cuts with some more modern, electronic selections really kept things interesting and in an effective groove.

As the clock dripped a sweaty arm past 3.30AM, Farina decided to bring the tone down to Mushroom Jazz town. The change of pace didn’t interrupt the floor for a moment, as the crowd was officially in the palm of his hands. Though, the heat and dancing and quite possibly the ‘rehydration techniques’ I’d employed for the evening began to get the better of me at this point so, so having taken in my healthy dose of house for the evening, our gang decided to call it a night.