- My anticipation was high for Laurent Garnier, especially after reading rave reviews about his skills on the decks. He was spinning at The Cross, which is a very intimate and cosy room complete with a furry bed and terrace room. It is hidden away upstairs above The Bourbon, safely removed from the frights of Darlinghurst Road behind a massive black door.
John Devecchis banged out the warm up set, but played a very different set to what I expected. Every other time I’ve heard him he has played house, but this time he was spinning gorgeous minimal tech house. Thumping stuff, with the ups and downs in all the right places, the crowd lapped it up: some punters even arrived and mistook his set for Garnier’s until told otherwise. Devecchis has been improving in leaps and bounds lately; he’s very much a DJ who thinks through his sets to compliment whoever he is warming up for. Definitely one Sydney DJ to keep an eye on.
He also managed to keep everyone interested through extra time: Garnier came on over two hours late – not impressed! The Frenchman’s first couple of hours were good, bassy techno with touches of minimal and even prog to it: a great mix of well known and underground tunes that had everyone going nuts. There was even a massive trainwreck in this period, but BAM he recovered nicely, before moving onto a sound in the third hour that could only be described as mainstream. Clubbing to nineties rock hits such as Blur’s ‘Song 2’ and Nirvana ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is a dispiriting experience – this isn’t to say that the majority of the crowd didn’t love it, but is this what they were here to see? For me, it screamed of nights spent in RSL clubs and pubs as a teenager.
Garnier’s last stint recovered nicely though, mixing together everything from dnb to reggae, tech-house to prog. Unfortunately, many punters were left a little disappointed. Even if Garnier’s set exceeded a lot of expectations, the 2+ hour wait for him, combined with the high price of tickets, left a lot of people grumbling and unhappy. Musically speaking, props to Devecchis for an incredible set, and Garnier gets two thumbs up, but I think the promoters could have got more out of it if they had got him onstage earlier. Less people would have whinged.