- For a lifelong Sydneysider who has seen local nightlife choked out in recent years, Vivid is always a dazzling reminder of just how special this city can be. The annual winter festival of lights, music and ideas illuminates and transforms Sydney after dark, bringing a kind of bubbling nighttime romance to the streets. While the number of great parties continues to increase each year, it's the Sydney Opera House's Vivid LIVE offering that remains the festival's major highlight. The diverse programme always features a run of four club nights in The Studio, a plain dark room in the belly of the venue that's transformed into a party paradise. This time around, one of New York's true disco originals, Danny Krivit, took the reins.
When I entered The Studio, escaping the briskness of the first night of winter, local digger Lauren Hansom was warming up with a string of synth boogie jams featuring strong vocals and chunky '80s drums. The room, which in past years has been overhauled in elaborate and immersive ways, was comparatively sparse, with a couple of intricate lights (which I later learned were actually projectors) onstage doing the heavy lifting. As the night progressed they blossomed into spectacular digital disco balls, dotting the room with twirling coloured spots.
After clocking off with the male vocal version of Loose Joints' "Is It All Over My Face," Hansom made way for another dusty fingered DJ, New York's Natasha Diggs. She turned things molten, starting at a low, smouldering tempo, seducing the crowd with some Fred Wesley and Barry White, before launching into an incredibly energetic two-hour set that had the place shrieking. Using all 7-inch records, she blasted out everything from deep funk cuts and big brass-driven slammers to old-school rap and Latin disco jams. Crowd-pleasing tracks like Gwen McCrae's "Keep The Fire Burning" and Phreek's "Weekend" sent people into a frenzy—was this the first time someone had fist-pumped sitting on another guy's shoulders in the Opera House?—and the outrageously funky "This Feeling" by Frank Hooker & The Positive People did even more damage. Jumping on the mic intermittently to command the audience to "make some noise!," Diggs was met with total love and adoration from around 700 new fans.
When Krivit emerged, beaming his big bright smile and holding his trademark lollipop headphone, spirits couldn't have been higher. He led with the one-two punch of Chic and Talking Heads, a sign that things were on track. Regrettably, the elation was short-lived. The bulk of his set was filled with generic house music which, although full of positivity, was overly polished and ultimately forgettable. Every 30 or 40 minutes he'd drop in a morsel of disco, like Stargard's "Wear It Out" or Teddy Pendergrass's "You Can't Hide From Yourself," but it wasn't enough to sustain the crowd's appetite.
Maybe it's unfair to expect somebody to continue to draw from the same pool of records for decades, but hearing somebody like Krivit play the music that made places like Paradise Garage legendary—music he played a pivotal role in pushing forward—can feel incredibly special. To hear a stream of bright but ultimately uninspired house tracks felt like a bit of a waste. Thankfully, we had Diggs, who did a stellar job setting The Studio alight with her thrilling New York spirit.