|
A review from last year :)
NRG 5 @ Altona SLC, Melbourne (27/7/02)
Reported on Tuesday, Jul 30, 2002 by bollocky, prissy, rezok
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bollocky and Prissy's recollections of NRG 5 as a whole
Saturday night, the Smile Police and Space creations brought the Next Rave Generation FIVE to Melbourne. NRG 5 was held at Altona Grand Sports and Entertainment Complex. And grand it was. It’s a truly Melbourne based celebration, and, the organisers undoubtedly put hours of work into this rave. In celebration of the Maya New year (July 26th) the festivities were spiritually centred around an ancient celebration of the circular pattern of the earth’s orbit through time and space. Themes aside, the cyclic travel of the two authors of this review reflected quite a voyage in just a few hours. Under one big roof, many flavours and musical styles were represented. Big names such as AT*IT, Jason (02) Midro, Will E Tell and Serotone would have been only 5% of the DJ’s named.
We arrived in windy and somewhat chilly Altona around 11.30 to find a very squishy carpark. For those punters who had not pre–purchased ticket it was a cold wait in line outside the venue. Was this a mere oversight or punishment by organizers for not prepurchasing? If that wasn’t enough we were met by Brutus Beefcake Bouncer who looked like he was more at home on the back of a dodgem car at the Swan Hill Show. Successfully passing Brutus’ scrutiny we got our fluro tags and made our way to where the action was.
Being a sports complex the organizers went to a great deal of effort to mask this by going nutso with the decorations. Let’s imagine lots of black plastic and some makeshift chipboard dividers. Moving from room to room was what I imagine it must be like to run around in a very crowded rabbit warren. It was dark in walkways and renegade soccer nets made it their mission to constantly trip me up. Without the fluro tape marking the way one could easily have found themselves walking into a wall. In consideration of the limitations of the space the setup was quite remarkable and I’m sure Martha’s netball team who played on Monday night will have noticed a few differences. Imagine five rooms and 50+ DJ’s and you can get a bit of an idea of the task at hand so lets break it down already.
NRGetic Room:
NRG, Hard House, Acid Techno, Power Trance
Being the main room it was afforded the most space in the venue and two thirds of the laser budget. There was a collision between a mermaid shaped mannequin and a spinning mirror ball that ended up hanging from the roof. When we first poked our heads in, Mr. Ed was neighing out tunes to a fairly small mellow crowd as most punters were meandering between rooms looking for their groove. We checked it out later in the eve and found it packed with kids dancing like crazies. The biggest room of all, I guess it was the size of half a dozen indoor soccer fields, and all the goals were being scored on the decks here though, ANI*IT came all the way from the UK.. (we missed him) but from a few scattered interviews with punters, “He Rocked!” was the common string.
We’d spent a bit of time in Genki in between, but we were back in for Jason Midro, our local lad who played a killer set to the ecstatic punters, who swallowed up his tunes happily. Perhaps it’s a measure of his popularity, but for 6.00 am and a packed room to play to, he thumped out tunes like there was no tomorrow, and this was as the sun was coming up!
Hardcore Business:
Hardcore, Happy hardcore, Hard Trance
This was the smallest room in the house and the only place to be if you really wanted to rock it. We spent a fair bit of time here but were put off by an over enthusiastic DJ who was scratching up the tracks something chronic. We won’t name names but he was on shortly after pumpkin time and we nearly lost our groove like Stella. Billed as hardcore, happy hardcore and trance, from Jules vs Reemo back to Bassik the general flavour thumping hard trance. Hardcore dancers only please. It was presented by Rapid Events and Chix on Speed. Enough said.
Genki: (aka Pink-Red tube room)
Techno, Progressive Trance
This room wasn’t getting the respect it deserved early in the night. Probably due to the fact it was tucked away down the back but when we checked in later the groovesters were making good use of the ample dance space. The lineup included four deck battles: Teknotyk vs Ben Cromack, Finn vs Simon Digby, Robert Anthony vs Will E Tell, Serotone vs Linus ,Caution (PDT & Andrew Marsh).
Puzzled Room
This place could well have been described as the “foyer room” or the place in between places. Having not spent a lot of time here, in transit we found a spattering of punters doofing away to break beats throughout the night. If you were hungry, the white tiled floor led right up to a fully stocked Flinders st. style café, complete with dimmies and hot food. Not a lot was getting sold by the looks of things, but the refreshing aqueous offerings were well sought after. It was the least decorated room, and in fact when I asked one of the DJ’s there which room it was he didn’t know. Puzzled? Aptly named I’d say. Yeah, you could be forgiven for thinking this was a space that the organisers thought. “shit, did you say FIVE rooms?”, but the traffic flow of punters throughout the night had at least to pass through here to the “jungle decorated” toilets. Leave the hanging vines out, next time please. In terms of fine mixing, time was spent more in transit past puzzle room, so one cannot really comment.
Trance4m Room
Being the first room inside the security entrance, it afforded much luxury in the form of cushions, (some deceptively covered in wire), incense, a mini fountain and mellow vibes. We visited here soon after arrival, only to find it brought a new definition to chill-out room. In fact it was about 5°C! Later, once the space heater was cranking, and few more bods were able to generate a bit of warmth, it became the leisure lounge. More punters were horizontal than otherwise, and if you wanted a bit of nookie, u at some stages had to compete for a cushion. Kundalini mixed out some kewl rhythms of an almost Indian flavour, and later, the Kandyman and Deja Voodoo had a few people vertical to some faster tempo tracks… That was until the gas heater ran out of juice, and Steve Broker was left to warm up the already chilled couch potatoes.
All in all, the show that smile police put on was pretty damn huge. Just the co-ordination of so many acts, so much lighting, so many decorations left the punters feeling well fed. Spoke to the odd person who went on the Jumping castle, only to complain that he got squashed, and lost his mobile. Well that’s what Jumping Castles were made for (they have buckets in the corners to collect valuables, mate!)
To keep it up for 10 hours straight, without the crowd waning was a mean feat. If the punters support has anything to do with it, the End of the Cycle in 2012 will bring in NRG15 with a bigger and better night. Many more in between too!
Check out what the smile police are up to next here: http://www.smilepolice.com/parties.htm
Rezok's Recollections of the Genki Room
Leave the attitude at home. Bring sunscreen and sunglasses because we are off to NRG-5 at Altona! No doubt, most reading this will be familiar with the setup at the now infamous leisure centre and this was no different. Big sound, massive lighting rigs and lasers, lots of places to chill and relax and twice as much space for party animals. In total, 5 areas were well decked out, with the 2 main rooms – both the trance and techno arena’s being the largest respectively.
Indeed, I should add that the techno room got special treatment this time. An array of unusual internally lit plastic light poles making up cylindrical shapes, were hanging from the ceiling – add to that the usual vast array of lights, monster sound and lasers – and this was sure to be one of the better techno experiences at Altona. More often that not, punters favouring techno are relegated to an insignificant side room containing average sound and poor lighting. But not this time! The stage setup too, was worthy of note – a live setup surrounded by metal mixing cases on each side designed to have the DJs battle each other from across the room. Unfortunately, it seems the ‘central’ mixer was somehow overlooked and the second set of decks was visually stimulating rather than aurally appealing. What could have been…
Anyway, Hypnose opened the room with some down tempo and melodic tunes early in the piece. Post, a determined Teknotyk was stimulating a filling crowd at around midnight battling our prodigy Ben Cromack. The boys were pumping out a pleasing array of primal rhythms. User 18 made an appearance as did the stomping Zenit release Imaginary Boy – Daniel Vigorito. Next up Simon Digby took to the decks with new boy, Geelong’s Finn Whitla. As usual, Simon’s tribal sound featured heavily with Si Futures – Eurostar (Sven Vath Rmx) and Phil Kieran – Vitalian House featuring - to the screams of a satisfied ITM posse in the front row! Finn also pleased the [now] full house with renditions from Shufflemaster – Geylang and James Ruskin- Version – great job! To the now elated party goers Will E Tell and Robert Anthony took to the stage upping the tempo significantly with an onslaught of Will’s vocal samples cut up and dropped over the likes of Henrik B. Both Rob and Will complement each other extremely well – both are enormously capable, have impressive technical skills and love their work. A pleasure to watch every time!
Following them was an impressive versus live performance from Serotone (aka Adrian Pistritto) and Linus (aka The Technician). After some tweaking of the sound levels, these two inspired each other, bouncing tracks and samples around to an extremely-up-for-it early morning crowd. The sounds were relentless and hard (typically) and not for the faint of heart. A close with Ill Kill ya – Linus (Rmx) topped it off perfectly – thorough and on point.
Another of Melbourne’s young guns Degenerator (aka Nick Gaff) decided to up the pace further with a stomping set loaded with Speedy J-esque sounds. Worthy of note was the inclusion of June – Andrei Morant12 Tribes – Chris Leibing. An alert Simon Coyle matched blow for blow with an equally tough set. Cool. Caution (Andrew Marsh & PDT) stepped up next with screams of adulation coming from the floor when Umek – Lanicor was played - an early morning highlight.
Overall, I have never been the greatest proponent of Altona myself, although this was a special effort which deserves praise. The review is long but I felt needed the time to convey with some meaning how much fun NRG parties can be, were and are!
Love and Light...
|
....Oh..well...that's just the way things are sometimes and promoters for NRG6 should take note of this fact.
NICE ONE BRUVVA!!!! 
