Seriously, can Niche Productions please start teaching a “Summer Festivals 101” course? Because thus far, of the entire festival season, Days Like This has been a shining beacon of awesome amidst a dull backdrop of sub-par organisation, derivative lineups and poor value for money.

Returning for its second year running, the festival looks like it’s preparing itself for a long, prosperous stay in Sydney thanks to a diverse and interesting lineup, great organisation and actually giving a crap whether people have a good time, rather than just focusing on their profit margin.

Now, before anyone tears me a new one for missing certain acts, let’s at least revel in the fact that there was that much good music on offer that there were clashes at pretty much every moment of the day.

Mark Pritchard wrecked heads early in the Forum, churning out a live set of bent, glitchy hip-hop, crunchy dubstep and other assorted demented beats under his Harmonic 313 alias. There was plenty of material from his When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence release (including personal favourite Cyclotron ), as well as some new, unreleased gear.

Detroit’s Amp Fiddler provided the good vibes and super-happy-fun-smile-times on the main stage, bringing a full band featuring drums, bass and backup vocalists along for the ride. Playing a mixture of music perfectly suited to the weather and vibe of the day, Mr Fiddler and his band treated the crowd to a soulful performance of spacey funk and lush R&B, and a lesson in how to play a keyboard like a new-age digital Ray Charles (but not blind). Meanwhile, Pepe Bradock was playing an enjoyable if somewhat disjointed set in the Forum, mixing up a selection of old and new disco, house and acid, but seemed to have trouble piecing it all together in to any sort of coherent story or concept.

The Detroit legends continued to represent, with Theo Parrish taking over from Bradock and turning the previously somewhat lethargic and disinterested crowd into a tightly packed dancefloor moving in unison and cheering at every opportunity. What Parrish lacked in programming and mixing skills, he made up for in the sheer breadth of his music collection and his obvious passion for music that has soul and depth. Throwing down everything from old disco, funk and boogie records from the likes of James Brown and Positive Funk to soul and R&B and old school Detroit and Chicago techno, house and acid (including the thoroughly underappreciated Ron Hardy edit of Let No Man Put Us Under ), Parrish demonstrated the impeccable taste he has become famous for.

Matthias Meyer gave the new school house kids something to be proud of, dispelling any doubts that house music is being infiltrated by a wave of bland, generic, soulless drum tracks. His set was perfectly programmed, fluidly moving from warm, melodic deep house such as Henrik Schwarz’s lush re-edit of Equinox by Code 718 and his own Infinity (strangely the sample from ’93 ‘Til Infinity, which features heavily in the track, seemed to go unnoticed by the crowd) to bumpin’, funky house reminiscent of the early 2000s gear including Joy from Butch and the Shakedown classic At Night.

Meanwhile Roots Manuva – accompanied by full band featuring drums, DJ, synths, samplers – was hyping a sizeable, sweaty crowd at the main stage, working his way through a string of his classics including Witness The Fitness, as well as some new goodies. Set-list wise the performance seemed to lack flow, moving from dark, cerebral hip-hop to grime and feel-good reggae within the span of a few minutes, but hey, when you’ve got that many people on stage working together so seamlessly and hyping the crowd so much, who really gives a crap?

Longbeach’s favourite white boys Ugly Duckling and Sydney post-rock poster boys Pivot competed for attention next at the Garden and Street stages respectively. Ugly Duckling showed all the cheap, mass-produced faux-gangster knock-offs like G-Unit how a hip-hop show should be: fun, energetic, and simple. All they needed were two MCs and a DJ, some dope rhymes and a healthy ability to take the piss out of themselves and the crowd. There was just the right balance between on-stage banter/crowd interaction and music, with Dizzy Dustin and Andy Cat often mixing the two and getting the crowd involved in the tracks themselves, rather than just resorting to standard call-response hype tactics between songs. Crowd favourites Smack and A Little Samba got a run, and DJ Young Einstein was given plenty of opportunities to showcase his amazing skills on the one’s and two’s. Pivot provided some of the most intelligent and experimental music of the day, demonstrating why they got signed to Warp Records. Brutal distortion, complex time signatures, uplifting pads and washes, and brain-frying sonic experimentation kept the crowd captivated and in a state of stand-still awe (as an aside, the last time I witnessed this phenomenon was Nathan Fake’s live set two years ago).

LTJ Bukem & MC Conrad took over the reigns from The Joker in the Forum, upping the BPMs but dropping the intensity of the music. The Good Looking Records boss rolled out a set of sublime, funky drum & bass that was considerably tougher and heavier than what he has made a name for himself playing, but still retained that deep, warm, soulful edge that has pervaded his music since the beginning of his career. There were of course plenty of amen breaks throughout, and copious amounts of sub-bass, but the set never seemed to get stale or lose its edge as Bukem fluidly moved between more melodic, soulful tunes and big, funky rollers. Conrad provided the dope rhymes, crowd hyping and stage presence that have become synonymous with his name, adding to the already positive vibe that was permeating throughout the room.

Finally, in one of the most heartbreaking clashes imaginable, Brazilian don DJ Marky and Wu-Tang weed lovers Method Man & Redman took care of closing set duties in the Forum and on the main stage respectively. Marky, accompanied by Stamina MC, had the Forum in an absolute frenzy, smashing out nigh-on ninety minutes of party-rocking drum & bass, dishing up anything from dark, aggressive tech-step to wobbly jump-up. A brief detour through some questionable cheese left some of the crowd scratching their heads (really, were Jump Around, Show Me Love or Kriss Kross really necessary?), but it only made LK sound all the more sweet when it was played as an encore and Stamina performed the vocals live. From a technical stand point, Marky has performed better in the past, however that being said, Marky on an average day is still better than 90% of drum & bass DJs out there. And it was pretty damn cool when he turned the deck upside down and scratched (okay that’s an understatement, it was well beyond pretty damn cool).

Meth and Red were thoroughly enjoyable, but not quite the religious experience that we had all hoped for. As one ITM forum member so eloquently put it, “they didn’t seem to scale the heights that Public Enemy did last year”. True, they performed some of their well-known solo material, including Time 4 Sum Aksion and Fallout. True, they performed some gear off Blackout including Y.O.U. and their classic How High. True, they did a tribute to Old Dirty Bastard. True, they are great MCs who work extremely well together on stage, are able to control a crowd like few others can, and always have something funny to say between tracks. But, something just wasn’t right. Maybe it was the fact that at times they didn’t perform the entire track. Or maybe it was that the sound seemed much quieter than earlier in the day. Or maybe it was that they probably spent a good third of their set engaging in banter and fairly generic call-response crowd hyping rather than just bloody getting on with it. Whatever it was, it brought the set down from potentially life-changing to just damn good fun.

Overall, one couldn’t have asked for a better day. I just wish it was January 2011 already.