Walking towards Villa’s palm tree, I overheard an Ambar regular exclaim, “Breaks is dead!” Brandishing his cigarette wildly, he scanned the outdoor area. “Where the f**k is everyone?!”

Unfortunately, the turn out at Villa on Friday night seemed to support his claim. For a gig that would have sold out less than two years ago, there was certainly a lot more empty space on the dance floor than most patrons would have expected. That said, this just meant that there was more space for the lucky punters who were there to rock out.

Opening at 10, DeadEasy kicked off the night’s entertainment to a relatively empty dance floor, laying down solid breaks for the next 90 minutes as the crowd around the bar began to swell. A few die-hard regulars trickled onto the stage, giving the next DJ, Marty McFly an enthusiastic cheer as he took control of the booth. Dropping straight into some fat breaks, the dance floor began to fill as he broke up his set with well-known tracks – WTF by Tittsworth and Stanton’s Get Wild – exhibiting his technical skills with some scrupulous scratching as his 90 minute slot flew past. Moving into some straight 4/4 beats towards the end, Marty (as always) put on a great show and showed yet again why he is one of the best breaks DJs in Perth. As Marty wound down his set, the crowd began to grow restless as they spied a familiar English geezer lurking behind him as the set drew to a close.

Deekline blasted onto the decks with incredible finesse, his experience immediately apparent as he used Serato to navigate through a selection of massive tracks. As with Marty, the dance-floor exploded as more well-known tunes such as Get Kinky and Handz Up bounced around Villa, but a huge cheer came as he dropped a breaks remix of Forgot About Dre from the depths of some impressive scratching. As a worn-looking Deekline pulled from his bag a white sweat towel that he he had apparently brought from home, the crowd went spastic as Plump’s Scram seeped into his mix. Pumping out signature big, bouncy, bassy tracks, the set was broken up with classics such as Prodigy’s Outerspace as Deekline and his crowd showed that breaks is still capable of destroying virtually any dancefloor.

To the huge benefit of the crowd, the sole member of duo Ctrl-Z appeared to be playing whatever he wanted instead of just sticking to the regular breaks formula. Utilising Villa’s three CDJs and his iPhone as sampler, every drop stunned the crowd as he dropped the tempo from Could be Real by Subfocus to a loop of House of Pain’s Jump Around (provided with accompanying vocals from Lady Sovereign), and then weaved Stanton’s Handz Up right down into some solid dubstep. It was an incredible performance, and the fact that he was one of the only DJs of the night who refused to use DJ software made it even more impressive. Swapping CDs every ten seconds, the VIP area behind the booth was crowded with amazed photographers and local DJs. The awestruck crowd enjoyed such combinations Public Domain’s classic Operation Blade which gave way to the Beat Assassin’s remix of Stand Up, and Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name Of into Block Rockin’ Beats by The Chemical Brothers. It was great to see Ctrl-Z obviously enjoying himself behind the decks, experimenting with different samples and tracks as he blew minds throughout the venue.

Bob Nocerous took the booth at 0400, more than stepping up to the difficult task of following Ctrl-Z, filling out his set with thick, heavy basslines and pumping broken beats. As the crowd began to thin, we made an exit through groups of people still pumped from an awesome night of breaks – an occurrence that is, today, far too rare. However, although the crowd was smaller than either of the headliners were used too, they certainly made up for it in energy and good vibes. As one patron put it as we were on our way out through the doors, “No one can deny a fat breaks track – it just gets people moving.” And it’s true. Whilst breaks may have faded from popularity over the last couple of years, the creativity of artists like Deekline and Ctrl-Z give hope that a revival is on its way, and that we will see more of these gigs and a bigger crew at them in the nearer future. For those who stayed away – you missed out…