Summer: the best time of the year. It’s hot, it’s light at night and the a-list of electronic dance music venture to our shores for a string of killer shows – the latest in this summer’s impressive line-up is American house star Claude VonStroke.

The Spice Cellar, formally known for its day clubbing antics, was just one of the places around Sydney where the heat was turned up to ignition point for a Thursday night on the town. But unlike other places, the Spice Cellar was doing it for free before midnight.

The idea was to help promote the clubs rebranding, but with a line up of Claude Vonstroke on Thursday, Guy Gerber on Friday and John Power on Saturday, the free entry was hardly necessary to draw a crowd – but welcome nonetheless.

Vonstroke helped their cause when he told people on FBi radio earlier that day to ‘get down there early.’ He wasn’t wrong, when I rocked up at 11pm; they were over half full with people adding to the queue by the minute. The guest list for free entry had filled up well before the night commenced, but it was a reasonable price for Claude Vonstroke and Co.

Christian Verlaan and Steve Sullivan started off at 10pm with deep house that flirted with disco elements while (I hear) Matt Weir, Yokoo and Murat Killic were thoroughly entertaining before the headliner around midnight.

Friends told me that CVS played some really: “sick, ‘bassy’, ‘housey’ music” at Stereosonic a few days earlier, with those three adjectives being all they could offer. Not having much of an idea about what was to be expected, I was interested to find out how he would perform in a club environment.

All I can say is that VonStroke played some sick, bassy, techy house music and the man sure can DJ. I have no idea what he played, but I heard tracks from his label featured prominently, artists like Nat Self, Tom Flynn and Justin Martin hit a particular note with the crowd.

The speakers sounded great when you were up front, not destroying your ears and it’s good to have a space where you can carry a conversation up back as well as listen to music. All up, Thursday saw a great show, in true summer fashion, from the masterful Claude VonStroke.