Having come from Adelaide to Melbourne this weekend, I couldn’t help but find myself at Miss Libertines to have a Dubstep experience. Not normally at this venue, the Heavy Innit crew still brought the dubstep worshippers out of hiding; with how cold it was last night, I’m surprised anyone left the house! Although the party didn’t kick off til 10PM, by midnight there was surely a large crowd filling the two rooms.

The night started off with a mix of some more ambient tunes, with a few original tunes from the show’s promoter, and DJ Affiks, as well as from A13. Following that Deviant started to introduce some more wobble and pace, with tracks from Rusko, Seven, and some tech-ier influence like Cyberman by the Benga/Skream/Artwork collaboration. By the time Riz One got onto the decks, the smoke, the lasers and the crowd dance floor filled the main room. This combined with the impressive sound system, this surely made for a visual and audio feast!

What was most impressive this night was the return of Affiks and A13 to the decks, really lifting the energy and intensity. The crowd was clearly getting into it, with the return of the whistle blowing, and a crew of superheroes in fancy-footed motion, it seemed like for a moment a PLUR like vibe of the rave scene was revived! Of course that’s during the Rastafarian style tunes, then the hip-hop influences like Dizzee Rascal came in to boost the sub-bass and have the crowd roaring! It’s not often you get that kind of energy from an intimate crowd, this just shows that these dubstep appreciates were clearly there for the music.

Being in a new city, not to mention walking into a developing scene for this genre, had me playing a comparison game most of the night. Even though many dubstep lovers are DnB converts, no famous Melbourne shuffle manoeuvres were there to be seen. None the less there was a visible inherent dance style, which is the opposite of Adelaide, where people sway, stand still in confusion, or look like they’re going to throw themselves to the ground.

Adelaide’s dubstep scene is starting to take off, bringing over international artists and having amazing talent like Counterpart and Jayar leading the way, but in Melbourne there is already a strong weekly presence of this off beat wonder. With four major promoters, and shows on every night of the weekend, this is, I hope, a sign of the growth and presence dubstep will have in the coming years.

The main act of the night was 6Blocc from the US, who is a more recent dubstep convert. His style was very vocal based and Rastafarian also. After the Melbourne boys finished with a rib smashing remix of Cockney Thug, the crowd anticipated the energy would have stayed the same. 6blocc came in loud; and by loud I mean turned up the volume on the mixer so the levels were almost peaking and taking the sound from amazing clarity, to rough. The vibe really dropped upon his entry, and it took half hour of him mixing to bring back any of the intensity of the earlier set.

The track that brought back the wobble and heat was Gangster by Skevist. However this was again killed for me after playing a remix of *Flo Rida*… urgh! Finding his set generally inconsistent and a little disappointing for an international act, I was impressed to realise that the there is some genuine talent for dubstep right here in Australia. Kudos to the Heavy Innit! boys for putting on this show, I’ll be sure to party with you again next time I’m in Melbourne!