I’ve only been to the Family once and that was for Paul Van Dyk last year. So when I find out that Hybrid and Henry Saiz were due to kick down doors and sweep us away with some great music, I jumped at the chance to see what they’d bring. Upon arriving at the Family, you could hear the energy thumping from the outside, but the main floor wasn’t the place to be. Specifically punters moved straight up to the uppers floors of the Uncle room, which was drenched with strobing lights as Henry Saiz dominated with some pulse intensifying techno and airy progressive tunage, crossed over with some mighty bounce house, I’ll be completely honest, I’m not the biggest fan of the sort of stripped back house sound that Saiz played, but again that’s completely overshadowed by the fact that his set was probably the most danceable set of techno/minimal and house I’ve heard. Saiz’s set came to a close, to applause, wild photos and plenty of excited grins being shared as Hybrid stepped up, headphones on neck, ready to begin the set.

We were treated to tunes that were full of peaks and troughs, massive builds were to be had with the opening set of tracks that Hybrid dropped. However, the energy reached the peak time when, with supporting cheers dropped Zodiac Cartel’s El Maestro, which shock and awe’d the crowd with its tremendous bassline and it’s almost tribal vocals, we were treated with the track fusing into Wolfgang Gartner & France Preve’s deep scratchy electro number Yin.

A stunning remix of Moby’s Porcelain took the set in a different direction, pushing the very boundaries for beauty in a set I’ve heard in quite some time as they dropped an absolutely stellar set of atmospheric breaks numbers which I have a sneaky suspicion that it was a taster from their upcoming fourth album.

After the atmospherics and the crowd came slowly falling from the sky, we were immediately snatched up by the almost fighter jet awesomeness of UNKLE’s Restless and its accompanying (And might I say, its best) remixes from Fake Blood and Future Funk Squad to which the crowd jumped, shook, grooved and sweated over. However, these tracks weren’t just back to back, Hybrid proceeded to mash them up, with Fake Blood’s build and lead synth punched into Future Funk Squad’s absolutely delicious breakbeats.

With all of the energy that Hybrid had built, one was expecting a massive finish, and it was but not how you’d expect it, with the final few tracks dropping into rocking minimal techno; which I didn’t think could actually achieve such a powerful sonic level, but Uncle proved it was possible. However with that in mind, the change from the big room sound to the darker, brooding techno did drive some of the crowd away. But overall, when the set came to a close, you became extremely appreciative about the skill that Hybrid showed behind the decks, as they dropped tracks you wouldn’t necessarily expect them to.

Perhaps I’m a bit of a closed minded first album lover material still, but I was certainly not expecting the big room tunes that Hybrid dropped over the course of the night. I was expecting a few classics dropped and a few of the groups own tunes, but alas that wasn’t the case. Instead we got an eclectic set of massive sounding tunes, complimented by a wicked sound system that seems to have been designed to have any drum kicks actually replace your heartbeat after a cross country run. All of this coupled with a great lighting show made the night into as my friend put it; a “fantabidosy” night.