Melbourne’s disco/electro community had surely been waiting for this night for a long time. Making his return to our giant island after putting smiles on everyone’s faces at Parklife last year was the Scottish prodigy Grum. The hype for the evening’s events had been building for months and now we were all at that apex of excitement.

Taking the stairs up to Roxanne’s was an anticipation builder in itself. The bass funnelling down the staircase had punters clambering faster and faster to the top to arrive at their destination. God dammit, Roxanne’s was packed.

After paying ten dollars for a beverage, I came to the conclusion that music was where I was going to get my enjoyment from, not the bar. I headed straight to the back room where local band Q vs Q were in the middle of their set, I had never encountered or heard of the group before but they were putting on quite a show for a small, yet interested crowd.

The three members were doing a great job getting the crowd involved with a good mix of grinding electro, disco and the occasional snap of dubstep. The female vocalist, dressed as a bunny, gave their show a quirky aspect and her vocals slotted in the mix quite well.

Shimmying into front left of the stage, The DJ opening for Grum pulled out possibly the biggest dancefloor weapon in house music at the moment in Oliver $’s Doin Ya Thing. Playing a 6am house track to a room full of disco fiends was a ballsy move, but it worked a treat, slowing down the mood all while keeping everyone grooving to the infectious bassline.

Grum’s humble nature saw him slip up behind the decks without being noticed. He opened up with a few humble funky numbers to find his bearings, and after getting himself comfortable, it was The Magician’s remix of Lykke Li’s I Follow Rivers that had everyone grinning ear to ear.

Runaway was the first of Grum’s original pieces that got everyone going nuts. Having everyone’s arms in the air actually freed up a bit of space between us all, which came as a relief.

The biggest letdown of the evening came from the dance area also being used for a highway for people. There is nothing more annoying than having to make room every five seconds for people manoeuvring through the crowd when you’re trying to have a good ol’ fashioned groove. And even, worse when these people make camp right in front of you and continue with their mouth to ear conversation. Argh, it’s a dancefloor not a stance-floor!

It was time for a break, and upon return his remix of Night Riders was getting belted out. It seems that Grum may be trying to venture out with a few of his more recent productions as this piece has a heavy trance influence – sorry, I’m not a fan.

But it was all made up for not long after. Through The Night sent the crowd berserk, and the strobe lights did a damn fine job of increasing “that feeling” that us dance music fans often talk about. From then on Grum completely tore the place apart. Dropping his Friendly Fires remix of Skeleton Boy, Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You and Rogerseventytwo’s banging remix of DJ DLG’s Paramount all in quick succession . It was then he pulled his ace card and gave our calf muscles a rest by playing Alan Braxe’s classic In Love With You. The track had an amazing sedative effect and slowly brought us back to earth after lifting us off with the last half hour of his set.

Grum proved a great example of how a DJ can control a crowd, plateauing and peaking at all the right times, before shooting us off in a rocket ship at the end. Grum’s presence behind the decks isn’t the liveliest, but what he lacks there he makes up for in the quality of his music. Grum definitely brought the much-needed heat to a miserable Melbourne winter.