- My not so small group of friends and I had well and truly warmed up, amped up and got pissed up at a BBQ before our excited arrival at Darling Harbor to see the one and only S-Man himself - Roger Sanchez. Excitement quickly turned to shock at the pure number of people who had also rocked up in the hopes of seeing Sanchez play; thank god we all had our tickets/entry sorted because over 1000 unlucky clubbers missed out on a bit of seriously awesome playing from Sanchez!
Our plan had been to get there around 10.30pm and have a few drinks before hitting the dancefloor and reserving our spot in the mainroom – not a chance in hell! Home Bar had queues like I have never seen before and there were hopeful clubbers patiently waiting back past the I-Max…We were wasting no time, there was dancefloor territory to be reserved and no chance of drink nearby..
By the time we had discussed our various different points of entry – Guestlist, Prepaid tickets or Terrace membership, broken up into assault teams and started scaling the walls (sorry I mean queued politely with everyone else in Sydney) fought our way to the bar, screamed our drink orders, text messaged everyone we knew and had finally made it to our meeting points it was midnight, there was merely an hour and a half to wait for Roger Sanchez to get going…and yes we were right up the front and the DJ Box was ours (well the right hand quarter anyway)!
Alex Taylor was warming up with a deep driving set, I’m normally a fan but I couldn’t name a tune Taylor played due to my obsessive watching checking (approx every 2 mins) in excited anticipation of Sanchez..and then it started..a roar went up from the crowd...it was only 1.18am (told you I was checking)..he was here, the shout started at the back of the club and by the time Sanchez had arrived Alex Taylor had been drowned out. Sanchez slammed in the opening to his set, with his trademark tweaking of the EQ’S and built the crowd into a frenzy with his own remix of “Rendezvous “ Basement Jaxx.
The manic dance floor stayed electrified as Sanchez took us through deep progressive house music, lifting the banging bass by expertly mixed big tunes including “A Little More Love”, “Let the Sunshine In” and a very different mix of “E-Samba” not forgetting the down right amazing remixes including “Sweet Dreams” which was just outstanding.
The blend of deep driving house alongside funky vocal house music is Sanchez’s signature, but I’d forgotten how well he can drive the crowd with his accapella's, including my favorite “At Night”. Sanchez yet again stunned the crowd with his ability to blend deep dirty house with funky vocal tunes even chucking in some of the highest quality trance.
The big personality of Sanchez behind the decks is just part of the appeal, he loves what he is doing, he plays to the crowd and damn can that man mix! You could see the Sanchez’s disappointment that the EFX-500 wasn’t working and I can’t imagine how much better he could have got with that little baby to play too!
3 hours ticked away all too soon, a blinding mix of “Clocks” filled the mainroom shortly followed by the timeless “Another Chance” all you could do was hope it would not be another year before Roger Sanchez graces the shores of Sydney again and of course rant on to all your mates about how damn good the S-Man always is (especially the ones who missed it!!).
p.s – take note the first to the bar that night were the folks with the prepaid tickets�