The moment you enter and get your stamp, a tingling starts at the base of your spine and works its way towards your head. It is a feeling that’s associated with anticipation and excitement, something that happens when the right combination of factors come together for a night out.

The club shouldn’t be too packed or too empty, the queue for the bar reasonable, the lights colourful and bright and most importantly the music should bang hard. Chinese Laundry ticked most of these boxes when it played host to a UK drum & bass invasion to start off the new month. Add to these elements the natural high that you can get from the enthusiasm of others and the forces of humanity are large enough to lift the roof off an underground club.

Even still, MC D-Tech urged the crowd to lift the little bit higher with the universal slogan of partying, “Sydney, make some fucking noise.” That was the cue for The Qemists. They started sometime after 11:30pm, coming out with huge, growling, moving bass, impossible build-ups and stabbing synths, the type of noise that makes you want to jump and thrash around like an idiot.

Culture Shock then followed with a banging party set. Some of the decipherable notes in my phone give little reminders like, “it’s late, effected sound, high tempo rhythmic sorta beats, crowd loving it.” And “crazy switch from jungle to twostep to electro, wow.”

The numbers in The Cave and The Laundry fluctuated like the peaks and troughs of the music, as people darted back and forth between Zwelli and Yayogi and the main action. The main room was all hard-out drum & bass, while The Cave offered something a little different. Not to say that the bass wasn’t as huge, but Zwelli and Yayogi were more relaxed in their approach – less heft and more groove.

Towards the end of the night, I could hear some great conversations while standing outside. People let go of words in favour of onomatopoetic noises, trying to describe some bassy, synthy sound that just blew them away. A bloke in white turned to his mate and said, “Did you hear that? You know the, wahh, wahh, bomp, bleep one just before?”

“Yeah, nice one,” came the reply.

And that’s it. It was really good, nice music. By well past midnight, I was having such a good time that the 3am lockout rule completely slipped my mind. Much to my annoyance, I found myself outside at 2.58 and unable to get back in by the designated hour. Beware the lockout.