Entering The Jubilee, I was hit with the reggae stylings of UB40’s Red Red Wine mixed with a sub bass rumbling and punctuated with the odd crack of a snare drum. For a brief second I thought I was hearing some amazing new remix but it was merely the sound of The Jubilee’s ubiquitous rock covers band bleeding into the space above it; a bass heavy mix of dub step, glitch hop and electronica being hosted in The Star Bar. Walking into the top room I was immediately enveloped by a massive subsonic wall of dubstep courtesy of Sketi vs Turtle, firmly destroying any remnant of the rock covers being belted out below.

After their set the punters’ patience was finally rewarded with a massive dubstep remix of The Prodigy’s Breathe, nicely re-energising the crowd in preparation for one of tonight’s features: Spoonbill. When he finally came on to alleviate our impatience, Spoonbill maintained the previous tempo with some of his slower dubstep flavoured tracks, moving into his signature quirky mid tempo electronica – much to the delight of the ever growing crowd. His set maintained this pace and flow, dropping some of the best electronica I’ve ever heard, brilliantly combining heavy basslines with glitched out synths and samples to produce a dance rocking vibe the crowd couldn’t get enough of. As midnight rolled around, the crowd was starting to get impatient waiting for the main man of the night to come on. When Vibesquad finally bounced onto the stage, the crowd was more than ready. I’m not sure if his music is inspired by his energy or vice versa, but it worked out to be a perfect match, his massive beats and catchy warped synths buzzing through the room and onto the stage like a tornado of sound, whipping Vibesquad and the punters into a frenzy.

My only disappointment from the night was the misuse of the term ‘live’ in promotion of the event; which according to the line up was representative of most of the artists on the bill. Perhaps you can call me old fashioned, but twiddling a few knobs controlling master FX and letting tracks play from start to finish with little variation does not constitute a ‘live’ performance in my eyes, and I would have liked to see much more ‘performing’ in general. Dance music is so easy to manipulate and it’s about time we saw more from the artists we love listening to when we see them live. All in all however, the music was fantastic, the vibe was really great and both party people and chin stroking production headz were satisfied in equal parts. It’s fantastic to see glitch hop and mid tempo breaks finding a home in Brisbane.