It needed to be something special to draw me out of my nice warm house just before midnight on Friday. But it was a no-brainer really; four hours of live psytrance, and only a 10 minute walk from my home at room680. In its heyday, room680 was a hot spot, including beautiful decor and an expensive and very well-designed sound system. Over the years the venue was undergone many changes, as well as wearing the many masks of the different nights held over the years. Whilst room680 wasn’t packed when I walked in, it looked fantastic. The decor was spot on and the dance floor has been reconfigured to given more open space…. To be given a working over by an eager psystrance crowd.

Psytrance chin strokers don’t stand at the back of the dancefloor and count BPMs, they don’t stand at the bar flexing their muscles or preening in front of the mirror in their high heels. If the tunes are good, they dance their arses off for hours on end. The crystal clear sound system throwing out blissful ‘whumps’ and grinds courtesy of Decoy were on show when I took the floor. He dropped some very classy psygressive grooves with some great live clarinet overlays. At times it was a little floaty, but the sound was crystal clear and beautifully engineered to dance to. Halfway in the tracks got heavier, the groove got deeper and the crowd lapped it up.

The ‘no smoking’ thing has really got something going for it, especially when places like room680 open up a well heated rooftop layout where I was surprised to see even more people than were downstairs… and bonus time! Playing under ‘Deeper’, Fatali was up next and played the first of his two live sets. I came down to a much busier dance floor. Whilst still embedded in the sound that can only come from a live psytrance set, Fatali introduced much more complex arrangements, easing into a more emotive soundtrack which at times had a distinctive trance feel, without the cheese of the more commercial offerings. He made a great step up from Decoy’s set without increasing the intensity too much, and furthermore proved to be the perfect progression into the next act.

Tetrameth stood up and instantly lifted the tempo, urgency and removed the emotion and replaced it with a raw edge. The sound was darker, less uplifting but compelling enough to me on my feet to the entire set before I had even registered. It was harder but very engaging. Psytrance is my preferred genre and getting three totally different acts one after the other, but still maintaining the core of what is psy trance, was blissful. By now the crowd were seriously building up and really starting to peak. What looked like a technical problem saw 15 minutes more of Tetrameth whose last three tracks were just awesome.

It was always going to be a challenge for Fatali to keep the crowd interested. Through the first three or so ‘tracks’ of the live set, there were plenty of breakdowns and short journeys. About halfway in the continuity improved and the crowd just lapped it up as they drew in and stomped away as most of the city slept soundly.

Maybe Interview would like to have had more numbers, but the crowd who did come along were definitely there for the genre and the artists. It was also a very cold night and it would be very easy to stay home. But still the dance floor got packed, and I got into it and gave it some. Best dance for ages. The music throughout the night was awesome – the best combined DJ performance that I have seen for five years, and I’ve seen a lot of DJs over the past nine years, big and small. The crowd was awesome – relaxed, friendly, smiling and no trouble. Four hours of live music, nailed, no complaints at all.

But which one of the sets really stood out? They were all so different and hard to compare, and whilst the darker art of psytrance can be a little foreboding at times, I’d go as far as to say Tetrameth got me going the most. The crowd that was there will talk to their friends, the reports will be good, and next time Interview go to the trouble of bringing together this sort of high-quality line-up, at a great venue with a top tier sound system, they will start getting the door number results that a night like this deserves.