Lucid Dreaming – a night of techno influenced music, supported by psychedelic visuals and of course an awesome laser machine which was reason enough for me to check it out, let alone the line up.

The Velvet Lounge is a venue of choice for a lot of the more “underground” gigs judging by its recent event track record, and Lucid Dreaming could definitely be classified as a non-main stream sort of event. The size of the venue and lack of any drafts made the night a toasty one while the cold weather persisted outside. Fortunately the cold didn’t stop a decent crowd coming out and tearing it up on the dance floor.

The night kicked off quite early, at 6PM with Aarin F plus a few special guests from the Lucid Dreaming Academy warming up the room while the few tables filled up with pizzas (I recommend the Nacho Pizza – delicious!) and empty drink glasses. For the most part an anime movie (no idea what the name of it is) was playing on the flat screens, followed by Drop Dead Fred, an ironic choice indeed. The music was good and the visual distraction had me constantly pausing mid-conversation staring at the screen with an empty minded gaze.

By the time Joe Stawarz came on I was onto my second cider while the pizza was well and truly making its way through my digestive system, powering me up for the night ahead. Joe played a good selection of techy beats that had half the room up and moving – no small feat at only 9PM. The visual maestro had also arrived and was projecting some very cool effects onto the projector behind the DJ booth, which had me staring into space for the second time that evening. It became evident why he is regarded as one of Perth’s finest DJs and is signed to the respected Soma Records.

Kyran Smith was on next and stepped it up a notch, bringing us some banging, powerful, rolling, techy progressive sort of beats that set my enjoyment meter to high, and my body to groove.

James A followed, and shifted the night towards a slightly more electro, broken beat and funky kind of feel without straying too far away from the tech theme of the night. Then Kid Deep arrived but we were checking out for the night, satisfied with a head full of beats and eyes full of stars, possibly a result of staring into the lasers.

A truly excellent well rounded night with a great crowd, cool shiny visuals, bumpin tunes and great pizza – one that any self-respecting lover of the tech minimal side of things should check out!