Braving the treacherous summer rains and flooding in Melbourne was no easy feat. Having seen Laidback Luke set the room alight at Winter Sound System 2010, and hearing a dozen new tracks and remixes out of his studio since then, a few foot of rain across town wasn’t going to hold me back. His rise over the past three years has been phenomenal, leaping directly into the DJ Mag top 50 DJs worldwide as a 21-year-old in 2008, and moving up to a top 20 position last year.

Walking down the Billboard stairs to the heavy dance beat was like stepping back in time to Hard Kandy, the weekly Friday rave night that made this venue famous throughout the early 2000s. The crowd was a similar mix to those days – guys and girls, friendly dancing faces and a collection of angry faces standing around the back of the room far from the dancefloor.

Oliver Twizt had the dancefloor absolutely packed by midnight. Security staff at Billboard The Venue were notably friendly and understated. The venue is looking better than ever and holding up well considering the variety and intensity of concerts and club nights held each year.

The venue was running at full size, with an additional bar on each side of the main room allowing some space to get away from the hot dancefloor. A very small extra dance area was running with DJs playing, however there were no more than a handful of punters in the room at any time. The negative effect of such a room seems to outweigh any benefit – the frustration for a young DJ to play to an empty space, and the music overlapping into the main room during any quieter breakdown moments, breaking the flow of the main-room sounds.

Laidback Luke hit the decks right on his advertised 1am and proceeded to bang out a set of big room anthems from the past 12 months. Mixing his releases and remixes along with vocal bangers, at times leading to a rock concert feel with the volume of singing rising from the dancefloor.

Fans of the Ministry of Sound-style club tunes were well catered for, thanks to the impact Laidback Luke has had on the club charts with his recent collaborations with Diplo on Hey!, Robyn on Indestructible, and Calvin Harris on You Used to hold Me. The biggest tune of the night was undoubtedly Luke’s collab with Jonathan Mendelsohn, Till Tonight, a song that you may not recognise by title but standing in the middle of the dancefloor would find yourself unable to resist singing – “Open up your aaaaarrrrrrms and spread them wide, nothing’s gonna hold me back this time”.

Taking a leaf from the 2manydjs/Steve Aoki dance/rock crossover textbook, we got a selection of Nirvana and Michael Jackson, before a bit of a hip hop interlude. Laidback Luke’s multi-genre mash-up Knas Episode has divided dance fans online thanks to its rapid cut & paste style, taking samples from Dr Dre’s Next Episode, Snoop Dogg and Steve Angello. What counts for Laidback Luke must be the people on the dancefloor – and they lapped up every minute.

His use of well-known club sounds mixed throughout the set kept the crowd entertained and involved. Definitely not a DJ for the purists amongst the scene, Luke appeals to the masses with dangerously cheesy vocals, while remaining banging enough to retain dance/rave diehards.

It was a great change to get up close and personal on a small dancefloor with such an in-demand global DJ. Hopefully this spells a return to club events with headline DJs rather than being stuck with promoters forcing us into festivals to see our favourites from across a football field.