It was a sultry Summadayze and for those who’d had a big new years eve (or come straight from Sensation) the dullness was probably indicative of a certain mood. Some zombies would have been better served to go home and wish their parents a happy new year but for others, electronic music would soon dust the cobwebs from weary limbs.

With many stages and a depth of artists who played across a whole range of genres it was easy to keep hold of your friends in arenas that barely held a couple of hundred people. It seemed as though the organisers had made a conscious decision to seek intimacy in certain areas but perhaps a lack of attendance gave the event an intimate illusion.

Summadayze is not without its reputation as a haven for idiots and while they were at their greatest number at the Main Stage, it appeared as though this year, thanks to the strong line-up (or maybe divine intervention), the shirtless terminators seemed to be hunting in thinner packs.

The Strobe stage was graced with very few people when Krafty Kuts began his set at half past midday. Given two hours to work his magic, it was probably the longest set of the day but it didn’t seem to encourage anything special. Playing electro tracks like The Count and Sinden’s Mega before delving into UK’s dupstep phenomena with more scratch and glitch, it was an ok start, but a little low-key for a reputation with which Krafty Kuts had been credited.

Strobe began to fill as Fake Blood’s one and a half hour set approached; queues to enter the smaller stage grew as security let in the hordes in ebbs and flows.

Fake Blood flashed in the lights and rung out over the speakers before he even arrived at the decks. Normally a DJ could drop his name in a mix or track to flag his arrival, but Fake Blood worked his name at every opportunity; ‘Fake Blood’ was Stuck on Repeat (Fake Blood Remix). He is, however, very conscious of his own arrogance so when he’s building towards a track like Starkillers Bitch Ass Trick or waiting for his own beat to drop on Jennifer Delano’s Amsterdam (Riptide’s Found The Spot remix) he’ll check his wristwatch or shrug his shoulders. This along with his track selection made his set drip with insincerity and charisma.

If there was any criticism of Fake Blood it would have little to do with the DJ and more so with the festival organisers who decided the Strobe stage was the best place to showcase the Brit. Sandwiched between two other (and much bigger) stages, tall fencing may have cut off the secluded patch from the rest of the festival, but the noise-bleed was something horrendous. Neither Fake Blood nor Krafty Kuts could afford to use the subtlety of silence or crescendo to build towards something because the PA of the neighboring Yellow stage continued to make a vicious assault on their sound. A shame no less, but something that didn’t take much away from Fake Blood’s showmanship.

With 2ManyDJ’s clashing on the revolving platform at the Main Stage it was only the last half hour that I rushed to see. Descending into the depths of the bowl everyone reached a point where the sound would switch from the PA that catered for the grassy hill to that which serviced the bowl; if you were camped along this latitude that divided the two hemispheres it seemed as though you were caught in split-second sound delay.

Good sound would have been nice, but the 2ManyDJs’ set seemed more about song selection that people could sing along to in their own head. The mixing was flawless and technical, but Shoes, Window Licker and Blue Monday showed off the Belgian brothers’ expansive taste in music. As a spectacle, the Main Stage was definitely worth kudos. Whether you were staring up at the revolving platform, or peering down over the bowl, there were screen and lights aplenty and from the incline there was the illusion that the dance floor was popping at the seems when really there was still enough space for people to avoid even the butchest gym junkie.

Behind the very top of the bowl the Sorry Grandma stage was quirkily decorated as a human face, with those recognisable eyes gazing out over the dance floor, high above the decks. Andee Frost vs Oohee pulled out some cool disco and are worth a cameo mention only because they played new house that sounded like old house, Azari & III’s Reckless With your Love and Still Going’s Spaghetti Circus.

It was with extreme prejudice that I walked to the Yellow stage at 7pm. It was the space responsible for bleeding into Fake Blood but the promise of Sebastian Leger was a little too enticing. The Frenchman arrived 10 minutes tardy, which was frustrating considering he was only playing for an hour. His set was incredibly heavy where songs not recognizable for any meaningful lower register were driven forth with a thundering bass. The pops of The Rhythm could have done without such treatment and thankfully Leger held back when it came to playing Jaguar. For most of the set the crowd had their hands in the air to unpolluted sound.

By the end of Leger’s set, the cloud cover was a little threatening but nothing could quell the apprehension for Nic Fanciulli back at the secluded Sorry Grandma stage, which thankfully was without another PA to bully it. Surprising was the less than 100 people who had turned up to see the boss of Saved Records. Strangely enough one of these few people was Sharam who crept from his backstage perch during the set, to the middle of the dance floor with the rest of us before quietly slinking away.

Fanciulli worked his way into a tech-house set with pumping sounds and songs contrary to his reserved nature behind the decks. Cirez D’s On Off washed over the few people who hadn’t retreated under the umbrellas as the rain began to fall. As if on cue, Inner City’s Big Fun struck a chord through the speakers, the diva’s vocals as pure and cleansing as the rain itself. And if it was possible to be any more nostalgic, Fanciulli’s set was given an even greater poignancy when lightning began to strike over the cityscape. No doubt the same sort of energy visited the Yellow stage, where veritable sources proclaimed Mark Knight had dazzled them along with the lightning.

By the time Fanciulli had finished and the rain stopped, Carl Cox was the last man standing at the Summadayze festival. People who weren’t already there swarmed the Main Stage’s wet slope from other stages; they gazed out over the flashing lights below and the flashing lightning above. Carl Cox was larger than life, quite literally blown up in the frame of the screen that hung above him from the canopy. For me, this set was a chance to debrief with friends between good music while a whole bowlful of people were going crazy till the last beat dropped.

Summadayze could have its stigmas, but upon reflection the quality of producers and DJs that were accessible to ticket holders was something quite separate from festival itself. Never mind the dickheads and the meat cleavers – if you made good decisions and saw good music, all the irritating stereotypes seemed to fall into obscurity. Summadayze was like many other Australian festivals – poor sound but a great bill. And a shame though some of the PA was, I left for home nursing aching legs – off to wish my parents a happy new year.