With the plethora of quality parties on offer for NYE in Sydney, the Purple Sneakers crew offered a more local flavoured and cheaper alternative to some of the larger, pricier festival shows. With a lower key lineup, headed by Parisian scenesters The Teenagers, it was a mixed and youthful crowd that packed out Manning House at Sydney Uni. Spread out over three levels with the outside beer garden centering as the mainstage, the venue was perfect for the mish-mash of genres on display. There was a DJ room for the chemically enhanced and even a chill out movie theatre playing the timeless Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.

With the gig selling out, bar a few tickets on-sale at the door, punters had packed in early to catch some lesser-knowns like Spod and Teenagersintokyo who had things moving early. But the first act to really pack out the outdoor mainstage were indie-poppers Sparkadia. Their breezy blend of hooky harmonies had a large proportion of the crowd singing along to their radio friendly hits of Too Much to do and Morning Light.

Next up on the outside stage were perennial party-starters Bluejuice who have played almost every venue in Australia throughout 2008. Their well-known live reputation was in full force tonight with twin frontmen Jake and Stav treating the now frothing crowd to a set full of hits that sit anywhere from hip-hop to funk to punk rock. Crowd favourites included Get Me Down, Phantom Boogie and of course Vitriol during which Jake treated the front row to some good ol’ stage dive lovin’.

Upstairs, the night’s too-cool-for-school headliners were playing to a packed theatre full of young hipsters, hoping eagerly to get a sprinkling of the Frenchmen’s fairy dust. Dressed in side-turned baseball had and dark sunglasses, frontman Quentin swooned in his thick French drawl and melted the heart of every female in the room (and possibly a few males too). Running through their most well known tracks including Scarlett Johansson, Homecoming and Selflove, the deprecating four-piece let loose at midnight, tearing the clock from the wall and inviting a stage invasion by the swelling crowd, and invade they did. The party moved from the dancefloor to the stage and every inch of spare space was filled by a boogying fan.

It was perhaps fitting that one of the hardest working, most underrated and nicest guys in showbiz, PhDJ, played the ‘headline’ 1:30am slot on the second level theatre. Not your conventional ‘dance’ DJ by any stretch of the imagination, but boy does the man know how to rock a dancefloor. Running through everything from The Prodigy to MGMT, his mixing is flawless and song choice generally spot on.

All in all, the party was a raging success, with value for money party fun being second to none. One thing the Purple Sneakers crew know how to do is throw and unpretentious and top notch party and this NYE monster was no exception.