The Lick It party crew certainly started 2009 on a high after what could only be described as a brilliantly sweaty night of electro, disco glam and hip hop at Brisbane’s Empire Hotel. If anyone could get our weary spirits going again this close to NYD it was Ajax and A-Trak.

Laying down an awesome hour and a half of heavy electro, party, hip hop dance and disco house tunes, Ajax had the dance floor in full swing well before the stroke of midnight. Mashing it up with tunes like Girlz Mighty Fools remix, Mr. Ozio’s Positif and some hot cueing and looping of Herve’s Din Da Da, it was a recipe for instant dancefloor madness. After adding in the vocals of Heavy D & The Boys Now That We Found Love with Soulwax NY Excuse, Ajax had made sure that the dancefloor was at maximum capacity for A-Trak’s onslaught to follow.

A-Trak, aka Alain Macklovitch of Canada, is a DJ that deserves a big welcome, but with a career as successful as his it’s hard to know where to start. This guy can do it all – scratch, produce, run a label – and after witnessing his show at Empire it is safe to say he can most definitely rock a crowd. Jumping in behind the decks with his laptop and Serato Scratch Live, A-Trak began his set with some heavy electro. From there on they just kept coming. Up front, I knew it was hot from the condensation blurring my photos, but it wasn’t until the strobe lit up the Middle Bar that I could see that The Empire was utterly packed.

The atmosphere was amazing, and despite the heat – if you could brave it – the dancefloor was the place to be. With such a huge crowd dancing you were quite restricted to the vertical plane of motion, but there wasn’t a frown in sight and the atmosphere and good vibes easily compensated for any restricted movement. The production came across brilliantly, and The Empire system was coping well despite all that A-Trak was throwing at it. There were some moments where my ears were not handling the extreme top-end filter effects as A-Trak blended in the beats, but the production and sound quality remained top class.

A-Trak’s track selection was brilliant as he played for over two and half hours and kept the crowd’s enthusiasm up throughout. The first part of the set was very much electro based, with all the big of the year thrown into the works. Some of A-Trak’s own tunes featured prominently too, including the remix of Boys Noise Oh!, and Laidback Luke’s Shake It Down and Say Whoa. Other big winners with the high-spirited crew on the dancefloor included Crookers Day n Night, Laidback Luke’s Be, Switch’s take on Divine Gosa’s Radioclit, Fakeblood’s Mars and AC Slater’s Jack Got Jack. It wasn’t all bleeps and bass, however, as A-Trak flicked the party switch back and forth from electro to old school hip-hop towards the end of his set; a move which flowed surprisingly well.

A-Trak also made sure to let us know why he won the World DMC title in 1997 with some absolutely awesome scratching techniques during the hip hop and electro tracks which gave the Pioneer 800’s cross-fader a work out it’s unlikely to see again. I’m always a bit tentative to hear scratching with club music, but this – and in closing the entire night as a whole – was a-ok with me! With Ajax and A-Trak both smashing The Empire’s dancefloors, 2009 certainly has a good year ahead.