Ian Carey has been DJing and producing for well over a decade now. Over this period of time he has teamed up with the likes of Eddie Amador and Jason Papillon for numerous side projects in which he has continued to build upon his reputation for producing quality tracks and great DJ sets. The name Ian Carey is now synonymous with one big sound: house.

With the release of Vicious Cuts 2011 in the early stages of this year, Carey arrives in Australia with a brand new single to promote and an arsenal of classic house hits to entertain audiences across the country. Boomtick hosted the house-oriented lineup at Villa just to make our Easter long weekend that little bit brighter.

D Mo and Mind Electric took the warm up honours for the night and managed to get the growing crowd out on the dancefloor reasonably early on. Both stuck fairly strictly to a house set, which put the audience in the right mind-set for what was to follow. By the time Carey took over proceedings, the balconies, dancefloor and stage were brimming with punters on a holiday high. No matter what you think of him, the guy certainly knows how to pull a crowd.

Going into it, my expectations for the night were fairly standard. His contribution to the Vicious Cuts 2011 release featured progressive house tracks mixed with his own productions such as his latest single Last Night featuring Snoop Dogg and Bobby Anthony, so it was pretty safe to assume this was what he would play.

These assumptions proved accurate with tracks by artists such as Avicii, Tim Berg and Afrojack featuring in the set. Fans were also treated to many of his old classics, such as the ever-popular Shaky, in a set that lasted two hours. The crowd could not fault him, but neither did they seem overly impressed with the house star.

You couldn’t exactly say it was a bad night. Carey knows what he’s doing and he clearly has the experience to do it well. But the night wasn’t exactly memorable either. As I squeezed my way through the dancefloor I couldn’t help but feel a little let down. I was by no means expecting Carey to reinvent the wheel, but something new or out of leftfield would certainly have not gone astray.

On the same token, herein lies the beauty of Ian Carey. Fans know what to expect from him and he certainly delivered on that, nothing more, nothing less, and I will be the last one to hold that against him. By now you’ve probably figured out that what I’m really trying to say is it was an OK night. All in all, I could think of worse ways to spend my long weekend.