- The lovely folk who brought us events like Sebtract and Close quarters are spreading their empire, this time in the form of Escape. With plenty of different styles being played over the night from hardtrance to dirty house to progressive to breaks, they gave something for everyone. And with the special three hour set from none other than the not-so-nubreed Satoshi Tomiie, this was a pretty big night. A night with hundreds of punters, 11 local DJs, 4 interstates, 3 different rooms, 1 worldclass DJ and a partridge in a pear tree.
Mention must go out towards the high level of production. With a plethora of lasers, large visuals and a huge sound system, it’s clear that they don’t skimp out when it comes to production. Using the main refectory hall as the main stage, the bar room as the Fuse room, the upstairs (where the Asian Bistro is) as the Hard Nation room and the other side as a chillout, they took complete advantage of what ANU had to offer. Now, onto the beats…
Seb started off the night at the unusually early time of 8:00 with a set of banging progressive and even a little dose of trance. Phil Jones and Harley were up next and followed along the same vein as Seb with peak-time prog, closing up on the breaky side of things with Sasha’s Fundamental. Jeff Drake started his set bringing the bpms down to a more appropriate level and changed the pace to a houseier tip with the filthy beats and vocals of Dzamb’s Anabel. By this time the other rooms had opened up and punters were eagerly waiting to explore, which resulted in punters missing out on gorgeous proggy sounds like the Charlie May mix of Josh Gabriel’s Wave 3 amongst other choice prog cuts. By 11:30, it was Chris Fraser’s turn to show what he’s made of beginning his set with the Thin White Duke mix of Felix Da Housecat’s Silver Screen – Shower Scene, which grabbed people’s attention immediately. Slipping in and out of styles based around mainroom prog while drawing influences from electro and house, Chris once again proved why he’s considered Canberra’s best by the simple fact that he managed to fill up a large sparsely attended room in the space of a couple of tunes. The main room was reasonably full by the end of his set, as Chris finished on Luke Chabel’s mix of Nash T’s What is Music and the stage was set for Satoshi to take over.
Meanwhile the Fuse room was rocking the whole night, keeping its standards as high as the club night. After a shaky start with sound problems, they were quickly ironed out as Nash T and Milk Bar Nick went back to back and had everyone dancing to their fusion of tribal and funky house. Ryan Papa followed, and even though he was competing with Satoshi, he kept the place grooving with his lush vocals and driving housey beats including his own new coke sniffin’ tune made with Jeff Drake – Lost in Los Vegas. Anjay finished off the Fuse room in style with his blend of techy breaks to bring the night to an end.
My apologies go out to those involved in the hardhouse room, because to be honest, I couldn’t stand being in there for more than a couple minutes at a time. Though from my quick missions up there, there definitely seemed to be a good vibe in there with plenty of punters gurning away all night long. From what I heard PeeWee and Archie were the favourites of the night while Jason Midro, Happy and Lan Shannon also gave stunning performances. Hard-hitting beats, constant breakdowns, and hard trance seemed to keep everyone in there happy, which is what counts in the end.
Okay back to the main room…Satoshi Tomiie got straight into his unique blend of dark twisted funk that he’s known for in both his production and DJ sets. Maintaining a strong mainroom appeal, Satoshi went through funky baselines and percussive moments, throwing in vocal moments like the Sander Kleinenberg mix of Royskopp’s Poor Leno and interesting prog pieces like the piano spiked Steve Porter mix of Driverchild’s Moments. He obviously had bucket loads of good tunes, but they were all generally similar in sound and I think the slow thinning out of the crowd was evidence enough that some were getting a little bored. Don’t get me wrong, he was very good, but he didn’t leave me with a great sense of awe. Nevertheless, the short and calm Satoshi managed to rock the place until four in the morning, leaving Sean Quinn to wrap up the night. Sean didn’t waste any time and threw on big driving progressive tunes before moving into breaky territories. However, at this stage both my body and ears couldn’t take any more so I decided to call it a night.
Overall, it was a good night with all three rooms being successful and gave punters their choice of sounds. And judging from the grins on promoters Phil, Seb and Kat, I’m sure they’ll be another big night for us escapees to look forward to.