Having only recently started my techno journey, I felt a little confronted when I walked through the door into the wall of sound that was the end of Good Machine Bad Machine and the start of Matt Radovich & Dave Pham. A little bit hard for me, and definitely too loud, judging by the distortion. The Mercat Basement is a dodgy looking venue down a steep, narrow staircase. I don’t know what it is about techno gigs and using camouflage netting – but I’m so over it.

The whole room was vibrating, the air thick with bass and there was a thin mist of smoke filtering through the room. It was the grungiest and most underground looking place I’ve seen in ages and I loved it. It’s a tad confusing as there seems to be separate parts of the Mercat Cross Hotel for different gigs, but not really any signage to indicate an event.

The crowd kept growing past 2am, entering through the tiny door at the bottom of the stairs, but hit drunkaliscous very quickly after 2:30am. I found a seat at a bench just past the bar that allowed more comfortable listening to the tunes which were now more to my tastes, but put me in direct line for being approached by multiple randoms. Steve Ward played a live set which was the perfect bridging between sets and treated the folks to a listen of MTC’s Tastes Like Bootleg.

I was really looking forward to hearing Sam McEwin, who runs the Melbourne Techno Collective nights and presented some wicked beats a few weeks back at Friends of My Aeon. I was slightly disappointed to find out he was down for a combined set, but with Craig McWhinney as a partner-in-crime they rocked it. The tunes were friendlier with some hip hop flavours and there were decent numbers enjoying it. These guys were definitely a crowd pleaser, and yeah, it helps that McEwin is easy on the eyes.

Rollin’ Connection started out playing to a much diminished crowd but still dropped a couple of classics for the dedicated revellers. The Mercat Basement gets cold very quickly and the side room full of couches scores all of the vibrations from the sound. An interesting choice of venue, but aesthetically it makes sense.
For veterans of techno, I would expect a slightly bigger crowd but given the extreme weather conditions, a few could be excused for staying home. I struggled with some of the harder stuff throughout the night but found that there was a lot that I really enjoyed. Tastes Like Techno was definitely an educational experience. Next time I’m bringing ear plugs.