- It was a freezing cold night in Altona, but as we arrived just after 11.30 the Leisure Centre was already rather warm.
I was impressed at the level of production from the outset, but knew that the Smile Police’s seemingly limitless army of minions would have been outfitting the venue for some time.
This was the first Altona party I’ve been to with the entrance corridor swathed in black, the glow-in-the-dark stars and loved up slogans completing a very effective mood-setter.
Inside the trend continued with the crew having gone to lengths to inject the Centre with a real party atmosphere. There were handwritten phrases everywhere, feelgood stuff like, “It costs you nothing to smile.” Yes, this was the environment for all-age hedonism that the Smile Police parties are infamous for.
And boy, had the people come out for this one! I spied lots of young things running around in colour coordinated outfits – schools of girls wearing matching short skirts, leg warmers, bikini tops, coloured hairstyles, the whole lot.
Whilst there were lots of people milling around the venue, the Genki techno room was still rather bare, but I joined a few aficionados in revelling in the battle of Ben Cromack vs Teknotyk.
The room filled up as the two played a mighty fine set, not too heavy, not too light. Cromack dropped lots of US-flavoured bombs, nothing overplayed, and Teknotyk was more than able to keep up. In typical style he gurned his way through some inspired cutting and chopping, playing off very well with Cromack in what was always going to be the most ‘intelligent’ set of the night.
The Genki room had been set up interestingly, the live performance equipment was in the middle of the stage, flanked on either side by two two-deck setups. It seemed as if there had at one stage been the idea of a 2 DJ, 4 deck battle, but due to the distance between the two setups, this was impossible as it would be rather impractical to only have one DJ in control of all channels!
The Smile Police were on the right track though – maybe next time!
Apart from this lavish equipment spec, there were those tubey things hanging from the ceiling around the room, and a smiling, inflatable octopod hanging near each speaker stack. Presiding over the whole shebang was a single head multicolour laser.
Similar décor and respectable lighting budgets were to be found in the other arenas. It’s amazing what an early break-even can do for an event’s level of production, but this event had more than superseded that, judging by the way the place was now filling up. One of the most memorable sights of the night was walking into the main arena and finding it utterly packed!
(I’m not sure who was playing, noone I asked seemed to know, and I couldn’t find any signs naming the room or with set times on them – something to consider for the next party!)
The techno arena was now comfortably full almost all the way to the back, unfortunately the smoke machine wasn’t turned off and the room continued to get more stuffy.
Regardless, it was great to see a stack of people ready to go mental to Finn Whitla at his biggest gig yet. A huge crowd of his Geelong faithful cheered him on, but in the end, they didn’t need to, as the entire dancefloor showed their appreciation for a very, very tidy set. Double-beating and cutting the vinyl relentlessly, Finn at times made us forget he was actually playing versus Simon Digby!
Digby, for his part, played his typical solid set of hard techno with a bit of funk. In every set I’ve heard him play since and including Fokus in April, ‘EuroStar’ and ‘Vitalian House’ have set the dancefloor on fire. Tonight was no exception, the former being mixed into the latter as Digby likes to do. We like it too – these two are certainly not past their use-by date! On top of these two, Sharpside’s ‘Space Cruising’ was simply the icing on the cake.
Finn Whitla is certainly one to look out for in future, but a ‘rising star’ who really needs no introduction is Robert Anthony. Robert is a lot of fun to watch behind the decks, and his pitched up, mixer-punishing style is even more fun to go nuts to. Digby’s Wet Musik labelmate Will E Tell was the obvious choice to partner Robert, and the final result was an hour of very enjoyable fast-paced techno.
Will E played a far more controlled set, in terms of levels and such, than he sometimes does, and thus, for me, played one of his better sets of late. He threw in a few monsters here and there, everything from Detroit house imprint Ghostly International to his own ‘Konstant Battle’ getting a look-in.
Robert Anthony also played a more controlled set if anything – it seems the two kept each other slightly in check. Robert has a tendency to sometimes get a little too adventurous with his double-beating – at NRG5 there were no such complaints. He rocked!
I ambled outside, through the masses, to the canteen. Prices aren’t incredibly cheap in Altona, but hey, at least they do chicken kebabs and hot dogs. Although, a bunch of council-vested teenagers in line next to me guffawed, “Hey, let’s get these dimmies and peg them at some cunt!”
I guess you have to take those plurry slogans with a grain of salt. Or in this case, soy sauce.
Now it was time for the much anticipated live versus set, as Serotone took on Linas (of The Technician fame). This is a concept that needs to be looked into further because I believe it has great potential. Serotone and Linas/The Technician are brilliant on their own – what would happen if they were allowed to mess around with what the other was doing, and add some of their own sounds as well?
I don’t think NRG5 realised the full promise of this format but nonetheless the performance was eminently danceable. Serotone has been pumping out his live class for a while now and rarely disappoints, relative newcomer Linas gets more confident and more adventurous with every gig. This boy is going to go a long way – watch out for more Technician gigs soon!
Next it was time for one of my personal favourites Degenerator to collide with Simon Coyle, who has for the last few months been belting out fantastic, hard, tough techno sets much to my delight. Coyle had impressed as recently as the previous Thursday at Teriyaki and tonight he was not going to let the full dancefloor down!
With the dancefloor reeling from Coyle’s furious intro that roughed them up with the gorgeous Chris Liebing remix of ‘Get On Up’, Degenerator went about scratching his way into the crowd’s hearts. Degen is an even more notorious gurner behind the decks than Teknotyk, and at times he looked a little miffed with his performance – but such self-deprecation was unwarranted. Degen kicked ass, and with Coyle was another excellent matchup in a very successful Genki room.
The smoky room and choking heat was, by this late stage, really getting to me, and, although my heart, ears, and feet wanted to stay on the dancefloor, a piercing migraine was telling me otherwise.
NRG5 was obviously a huge winner for the Smile Police. They don’t necessarily put on events for musical chin-strokers to come and stand around at - no, this is altogether a different world. They know their market and they cater to that very effectively. Obviously, the huge number of punters shows their success to this end, and the huge number of punters translates to a high level of production and thus ongoing success. With a turnout as large and as enraptured (barring angry people such as those I encountered at the canteen) as the crowd at NRG5, you can bet the sixth installment isn’t too far away.