With just about the greatest number music festival sideshows the likes of you or me had ever seen happening recently, Sydneysiders were experiencing a rare period of outstandingly high quality gigs on offer. Normally reserved for Melbournites it was nice to see Sydney get a taste of some of the best techno and progressive talent in the world in a more intimate show than your average festival setting.

One such act I had been very keen on catching at Future was none other than Berlin legends – Booka Shade.

My relationship first began with Booka Shade began after been exposed to a little album by the name of Movements which had just been released at the time. The album put Berlin and the boys on the map as the cutting edge of everything remotely minimal and tech. The album went onto become recognised as a masterpiece and attracted a whole new slew of fans from previously the only genre of dance being played in Sydney at the time, ‘electro ‘ to a more intelligent, deeper and ultimately more rewarding genre of dance.

This was going to be my 3rd time seeing Arno and Walter, my first experience was at the Metro in 2007 when Fuzzy toured them hot off the Movements album blowing up and the second time I saw them was at the Hordern which unfortunately didn’t really suit their at times delicate style of music.

Arriving early to see Jimi Polar and Nathan McLay warming up to an absolutely empty room, we decided to chill in the side room to the tunes of Vampire Weekend which was a nice and pleasant change from another room of dance music.

We ventured back across just before 10 where the mad racket duo were playing to a full house with a set that was some rather eccentric left field tunes from tech to deep house and even a bit of nu-disco before closing with Azari & III – Reckless (With Your Love).

The lights went down and time passed, then at 10.20 Booka Shade joined the stage, backed by a light show impressive enough to cause early blindness for half the audience, it was incredible. The lighting at this gig was some of the best I’ve ever seen and it really must be noted what a truly fantastic element it added to the show.

The kicked off their entirely live show with Darko and the metro was heaving, as people sang (always hilarious) to the song it was great to hear it slightly reworked, it had a lot more power behind it as though it was designed purely for the dance floor rather than the album version and was a great way to start proceedings.
The duo then announced that the next track was from their forthcoming album and boy was it good, the song then followed by another song from their upcoming album More!. Noticeably both songs had that dance floor feel to them that Movements had as they had moved away from that style in their most recent album The Sun and the Neon Light. If this was a sign of things to come on their forthcoming album then I imagine I wasn’t the only person there who was getting just a little bit excited.

MANDY classic Superman then followed and the crowd appeared more engaged with a song that they were a little more familiar with, before moving into a couple of reworked songs that I couldn’t even recognise possibly off their last album, but sounded more like techno with that distinct Berlin sound.

They followed up with the only real dance floor orientated song off their previous album – Charlotte, which again, was slightly reworked as was every song on their entire set and before you could say Ausgezeichnet it lead straight into one of their most well known songs Night Falls. Once again the crowd was ‘do do do ing’ along to the song which provided some rather entertaining value.

Booka Shade then ventured again into some techno with that Berlin sound that they had popularised on many of their actually DJ sets before leading into the unmistakable sound and one of this reporters personal favourites Mandarine Girl. At the centre of the masterpiece that is movements this was one of the first ‘techno’ songs I ever listened to and enjoyed so this song is something I always personally enjoy.

As I checked the time I could see we were running close to the end of their set but they still left room for undoubtedly their greatest song In White Rooms. This song has to be one of the greatest pieces of EDM constructed, a song with such universal appeal, something so simple but contains so much emotion. This was one of those special moments as I turned around to see the room packed to the rafters singing along.

They briefly left the stage to a screams of raucous crowd who simply demanded more and they were more than happy to oblige returning very shortly. Kicking off with a track off their last album before leading into their classic song which they partnered with MANDY, Body Language. I thought this was a terrific song for an encore and everyone loved it and as it finished Booka Shade ended the show in emphatic fashion (or so we thought).

Arno left his post behind the drums to head to the front of the stage, like a band frontman he shouted ‘you want more’ and was met with deafening screams and without further or due we were in for one final encore. They kick started again with one of my personal favourites, Karma Car although the rest of the crowd didn’t appear too familiar with that song and finished up with another techno piece I couldn’t quite recognise (my apologies).
They left the stage as the song played out for another few minutes, I stood there feeling like I had just been to one of the best gigs I could recall in a long time and the vibe in the room was still electrifying.

Of all the future music sideshows I had been to, I felt this one was the greatest and that’s with competition from Sven Vath and John Digweed, so that’s saying something. For anyone tossing up whether or not to see them at Future on Saturday I could only strongly recommend you do yourself a serious favour as their live show is far more impressive than most dance or rock acts could ever hope to be.