On the deceptively sunny evening of Saturday December 19th (it was freezing), the Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda played host to Modular’s 2009 Xmas Party, featuring a nice variety of Australian bands and DJs. Proceedings started in classic Espy fashion with some smashed glasses and a few ejections (in that order). It’s a credit to the Espy venue staff that they maintain a reputation for good security considering the amount of drunken St Kilda riff raff they have to deal with. Who ever said they could handle their booze?!

Those getting an early start were treated to a show from Sydneysiders Jonathan Boulet. Although we didn’t catch a huge amount of their set we did walk in on a room full of people waving their arms in ecstasy to A Public Service Announcement and made the assumption that they were well received. They’re a band that knows their limits and it was great to see them doing away with stage antics in an effort to stay tight and produce a crisp sound.

After a few intermediary DJs, Tame Impala were next up. They drew the evening’s largest crowd by far, packing the Gershwin Room to the brim with eager and by that time suitably tipsy fans.

Tame Impala made the safe selection of Half Full Glass Of Wine for their opener before launching into a succession of newer tracks with a much stronger psych rock influence. Most EP tracks were performed with plenty of enthusiasm and flair and after their sound was tweaked to perfection and the guitar riffs sounded cleaner, Skeleton Tiger emerged as an easy choice for their standout track.

Whether intentionally or otherwise, Desire Be Desire Go sounded sloppy, even bearing in mind Tame Impala’s reputation as a relatively freeform live band. Fortunately this quality shone through in a positive way during the remainder of their set, with intense 3-5 minute breakdowns dropped in after the second chorus in almost every track. Although the format became somewhat tired, the experimental jams themselves remained top notch and kept the crowd happy. After wishing the enamoured crowd a Merry Christmas they wrapped the set up with a brilliant extended live rendition of Remember Me. The reaction bordered on euphoria.

Muscles drew a fair portion of the crowd to the back room. Putting aside a mutually harboured distaste for his music and general demeanour, we decided to brave the predominantly young and female crowd to see how long we could last. Unfortunately we could only bear a single track – One Inch Badge Pin – until we were compelled to part ways with his synthetic hoodie, tacky sunglasses, clip-on bunny ears and drunken karaoke vocals. What can I say: the guy has oodles of confidence (if nothing else) and club virgins are inexplicably smitten with the whole Muscles package. May the force be with him.

Ready for some downtime, we mosied on back to the front room to check out Canyons. We were pleasantly surprised to find them midway through an all vinyl set of 80s and 90s disco house tunes. It was a nice backdrop for a few quiet beers in the front window overlooking the water and was upbeat enough to inspire those who were peaking at the time to hit the dancefloor. Although probably due to the recent circulation of Buy Now’s track Body Crash, the lads from Canyons struck gold with the Michael Zager Band’s late 70s hit Let’s All Chant. Tracks from A-Trak and Armand van Helden’s new side project Duck Sauce, as well as a cool mix of Pump Up The Jam followed quickly. After Canyons rounded out their set nicely with a few early 90s electro pop tracks it was time for Knightlife to take his front of house spot and for Nick Foley to fire up the back room…

...and boy, did he fire it up. He could easily have strolled in and announced “just here to drop some bangers and go home, y’all” because that’s exactly what he did. It was an arbitrary and predictable tracklist, but the crowd didn’t have a care in the world, and spent a frenetic 45 minutes losing their shit (and likely their hearing). Deadmau5’s Ghosts ‘n Stuff, Major Lazer’s Pon De Floor, a dubstep remix of Fake Blood’s Mars and (of course) Dizzee Rascal’s Bonkers were all ticked off my mental list along with a score of other tracks from French electro heavyweights. I was left in two minds about his set as a follow up to Canyons because in one respect it positively put them to shame, but on the other hand he was less than innovative with his equipment and could easily have played his set from a laptop. I’m the kind of guy who appreciates a well executed vinyl set more than an hour of back to back monsters but most patrons would have readily disagreed.

Even without any of their real draw card acts in attendance, Modular still threw together a really enjoyable night at short notice. Tame Impala were the undisputed highlight but it was pleasing to see a sizeable pool of talent to be enjoyed in the future.