- Misstress Barbara is a name that is constantly mentioned in my household and within my group of friends. After first having discovered her a little over 18 months ago, her drummy funky techno tunes are forever belting out of our car stereo’s and are usually the very beats that get us in the mood for a night out of clubbing.
Its not very often that we get to experience a techno dj of this calibre, so when we heard that Misstress Barbara was back in town, there was no other place in Sydney that we would rather be on Friday night other than Teknikal at Chinese Laundry.
Having seen Barbara at Teknikal in January 2003, then seeing Carl Cox on his Australian tour in December and most recently Dj Dan (who plays a more funky style of techno). My friends and I consider ourselves converted to techno lovers.
Arriving at the laundry just before midnight, the place wasn’t as crowded as I had expected it to be considering it was the last night that Teknikal would be hosting any parties at that venue. It was an intimate venue filled with a really up for it crowd.
Simon Caldwell was up first in the main room and was warming the decks up nicely before Alphatown stepped up to play their live set, I had personally never seen them play before and have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the banging tunes they churned out and have to say they pumped us up nicely for when Barbara finally graced the decks.
1am rolled on in and we were all anxiously awaiting Barbara’s arrival. There was no mistaking it when she finally appeared as all we could hear over the thumping beats were the crowd yelling out “Barbara, Barbara”… especially all the boys!
As soon as she placed her first piece of vinyl on the decks the crowd went crazy! One of the most memorable moments of the night was when she dropped ‘Pontape’ by Renato Cohen. I first experienced the energy of this track when Barbara herself played it at the laundry a year ago.
The crowd didn’t stop moving and jumping throughout the whole 1.5 hours of her set. You might say that an hour and a half isn’t long enough for her to play which is exactly what we thought when we first looked at the line-up, but I have to say it was a perfect amount of time for her to leave us on a high.
What more can I say… they couldn’t have chosen a better dj to send off Teknikal.
What a great night!