Belfast (no, not the Irish city) is the brainchild of longstanding techno stalwarts Hardware, who in recent years have joined forces with electro-house giants OneLove to form TotemOnelove. When I first moved to Melbourne six years ago, Belfast was a solid intimate party for those wanting to relive the hey-days of electronic dance music. After a hiatus, the Belfast parties returned with a bang in 2011, featuring some of the same faces on the decks, but with a few surprises thrown in.

So after heading to Stereosonic only weeks before to hear the latest of trance, tech and electro, it was really fun to know that on Friday 16 December, we could head to the Prince Bandroom in St Kilda for a night of no-holds barred proper dancing and hear more classics than you can poke a stick at.

The last Belfast was hugely memorable due to the surprise appearance of special guest Carl Cox – it was a pretty big deal for old school rave fans to get a set full of classics and anthems from the legendary UK DJ/producer, rather than the more mainstream stuff he tends to play at festivals these days. Rumours abounded in the lead up to the night about who would be the special guest –unfortunately, upon entering the Prince a sign stated that there wouldn’t be a special guest tonight. Gutting!

Totem/Hardware’s Simon Coyle was on the decks as we headed into the mainroom. The crowd was small to begin with, unsurprising due to the number of other big events on this same night. By midnight though, the main dancefloor had comfortably filled up and the smell of talcum powder filled the air. Keeping it on the techno and acid edge with a splash of house and trance, Simon kept the hits flowing, with tracks such as Brothers in Rhythm’s Such a Good Feeling, New Order’s Blue Monday, Innercity’s Big Fun plus one of my old school faves, Theme from S Xpress. Phew!

After working up a serious sweat to Simon’s set jam-packed with classics, Hardware/Totem head honcho Richie Rich jumped on the decks to take us to the next level in old school rave. Relentlessly delivering tracks with some great extended versions scattered throughout, the crowd was simply loving it when he played tracks such as Moby’s Go, Quadraphonia’s Quadraphonia, and the hugely remixed yet still currently loved track, Mory Kante’s Yeke Yeke.

Xpansions’ Move Your Body was the last track I heard before I headed home – and what a fitting tune it is! Move our body is exactly what we did tonight and I can’t wait for the next chance to relive all these great moments in dance music history.

The only downfall of the night was that the DJ that followed Richie Rich played numerous tracks that either Simon or Richie had already played – disappointing when there is such a huge back catalogue to choose from for an old school rave night and just not how they did it back in the day.

Overall, nothing beats having a damn good stomp to old school classics and anthems from time to time, and this night was no exception. Despite the disappointment of no special guest, the music was great, there was plenty of room to really give it all you got on the dancefloor, and many friendly faces in clubbing appropriate dancewear to appreciate and enjoy the music with. I’ll always head to a Belfast party in the future – love for the old school never dies.

Life might have slowed down and we might have gotten older, but we can’t forget the love of losing it on the dancefloor that remains deep inside us.