I’ve never been to Wobble before, and I must admit I never really wanted to either… I was a little afraid of the name, you see. I knew it was a drum and bass and dubstep night, and although I enjoy those styles (admittedly DnB a lot more than dubstep), I’ve never really appreciated the “wobbly” side of things. It was too cheesy, too repetitive, and I always thought to myself it wasn’t worth the effort. Luckily I was wrong about this show, and I’ve learnt – yet again – that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

I love Night Owl as a venue, although I was a little confused as to why we were forced to use the back entrance. I like the fact that there is a decent sized dancefloor with the amazing Heartical Hi Fi Sound System, plus numerous comfy couches for old folks like myself to rest on. Not that there were a lot of older folk in attendance, which was something I hadn’t anticipated and I was quite bemused about it. There was also a more varied crowd than I expected, comprised of ravers, emo/hipster types, and the dreadlocked peeps, all of whom seemed to be having a wonderful time throughout the night.

I found the bar, got myself a pint and then a comfy chair. I didn’t stay sitting for long, though, as AC23 is a DJ I’ve been hanging to see ever since he sent me a mix of dubstep a few years back. Somehow on that mix he managed to trick me into thinking dubstep was something it wasn’t… and he did the same again on Saturday night. He plays a variety of tunes, with different tempos and sounds I don’t usually associate with the genre. It was excellent and for the second time in as many weeks I found myself really enjoying a dubstep mix. It was helped by the excellent MCs, probably two of the best I’ve heard in Melbourne, who loved the rhymes and calling for the rewind.

Afficks was next up and this is where my interest waned. He’s a great DJ and kept the floor jumping, but the dubstep tunes he played all sounded the same to me, with the wobble bass and slowed down DnB beats. Some of the tunes were just awful – Ready Or Not is a classic and it was absolute torture hearing a dubstep remix. However, there were some decent tunes in there as well, such as the Chase and Status track Saxon (I think! I’m not too au fait with dubstep I must admit) and the Specials Ghost Town.

I was a little worried that after the hours of dubstep to this point, that Adelaide’s * DJ Fiction* stepping up to drop some DnB wouldn’t be able to hold the floor. I needn’t have been concerned though, as – in my opinion – Fiction is one of the best DnB DJs in Australia and sure knows how to rock a party. And rock the party he did, slamming down some new stuff and seamlessly mixing it with older tunes. Fiction was having a lot of fun and the crowd lapped up his expert mixing, cheering nearly every tune and dancing like loons, throwing their hands in the air like a good crowd should.

Cubist followed, getting a little harder and a bit more wobbly in his DnB compared to Fiction, although not quite as wobbly as me on the dancefloor by this stage (the amber liquid had been flowing all night, of course). Sadly I could only stay for about half an hour of his set, but the crowd was still going off when I left which is always a good indication of a great night!