I arrived at Zen (ex Underground Caf, China White) after rubbing shoulders (well nearly) with Mark Waugh at a 21st. This experience left me feeling a little disoriented. A large crowd had arrived early. Whether this was for the free champagne before midnight or the music I’ll never know. But the tumultuous bass of Farj’s set soon had me joining everyone else doing (hypothetical) back flips on the dance floor.
This was my first time in a 2-step/garage/breaksnbass club and had been looking forward to it all week. Usually, this sort of anticipation ends with a disappointing evening. However, this was not the case at Premium. Running at about 140 bpm, which is about halfway between the tempo of drumnbass and breaks, 2step/garage is a morph of the two styles. The bass is seriously thick, heightened by Zens monstrous sound system.
As I walked down the stairs at Zen, the subs immediately rattled my rib cage. It’s not often that you can walk into a club and head straight for the dance floor. The night was looking the goods.
Stoopid double dope bass massive, as one enthusiast described it.
Farj was tight and on the money and every track was a winner. I immediately SMSed my friends at the Boutique to get their asses over to Zen as it would be well worth the $15 entry fee. There was an ideal number of people inside, which provided a busy atmosphere but left enough room on the dance floor to rock out. And with the subtle rhythms of two step (no 4 on the floor here – thank you!) everyone was free to cut their finest Persian rugs. I noticed a particularly tall skinny guy who looked a lot like dj soup going absolutely loopy on the dance floor.
MCs Antic, K-note and TanziMC were efficient in their efforts, punctuating the break downs. Some MCs have a bad habit of rambling over tracks, so the crowd cant understand a word that’s said and muffling the variety of sounds played. This fortunately wasn’t the case, with the female MC being the pick of the night. It was a pity she didn’t get a run earlier in the night.
Unfortunately by four O’clock the energy levels of the crowd had dropped dramatically. Though there were still quite a few people on the dance floor, it was clear that Farj had left the building and we had heard the peak sounds of Premium. Zen was now lying back on a bed smoking a post-sex cigarette. At this point, it would have been nice if the friendly bar had shared the contents of the garbage bag he was carrying. That is, of course, unless the contents were actually garbage.
DJ Sheen played some decent tracks but his skills weren’t that great, and it seemed that 2step was a little hard for him to mix. The MC was demanding the crowd yell REWIND and if he meant to rewind about 2 hours it would have been a phenomenal night.
It wasn’t until I got home that I realised there was another room! The Premium Garage room existed somewhere in Zen (possibly the Chill-out room), but when I checked it out early in the night nothing was happening. So, my apologies to Junior B, Pete Mac and Paul Fraser, I missed you guys!
Premium was a refreshing and enjoyable night, this style of music could be the next bomb sound to hit Sydney. Check it out, at least for a couple of hours. If they manage to sustain the vibe all night, it’ll be five stars for Premium.
REWIND!
