- It was seven am on Sunday morning and part of me was questioning what I was doing on Chapel St. I strode up to the infamous orange door to be greeted by a man covered in tattoos and piercings. From underneath his white cowboy hat and yellow-lensed glasses he told me that at that early hour it was too full: members and passouts only.
“No problem,” I shrugged, and turned away to SMS my friends inside. When he realised what I was doing, however, he asked if I was meeting people, and let me in! Which was rather nice :)
Bounding up the stairs, buoyed by this kind gesture, I momentarily forgot that I was about to enter a club often referred to as ‘Revolting’. I paid my ten bucks, strode past the Asian man woman doorbitch in his (her?) pinstriped zoot suit and dangling white braces, and strolled into the club.
It was at that point I realised that I had entered the venue at the exact time of the week which gives it its notorious tag. The club was jam-packed with revelers in various states of disrepair, some drinking, some dancing, some comatose, all sweating in sweltering heat that smacked you in the face like you’d just gotten out of your climate-controlled car in the middle of the monsoonal tropics.
The front room had been closed some time before I arrived, but there were so many people in the club I was sure they could’ve filled it many times over. At least the man at the front door hadn’t been lying! Daylight was fighting a desperate battle to breach the rigidly shut Venetians and illuminate the detritus, the sun rising and the room becoming a little bit better lit. The first impression, of a dark, sweaty sardine-packed room was a little confronting!
It was a mission to move around the sticky floor and people were constantly being shoved every which way. Now, I’m not saying this is the kinda place I’d usually frequent, but for a first-timer, what an experience it was – most clubs would kill to get this amount of people through the doors over the course of a whole night!
No-one much seemed to care who was behind the decks but I smiled when I noticed it was Agent 86 playing an eclectic mix of electro and hip hoppy numbers. His superlative scratching skills were fresh, tight, and ambitious, although perhaps lost on the crowd. He went from melodic Lasergun tunes all the way through to latin-influenced rnb and ‘California Love’ – the latter drawing bemused looks from a crowd prone to checking people out when I elatedly rapped the whole anthem. Noice :D
I’m not entirely sure who the ensuing DJ was but he was a popular man from the get go, busting out Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ before playing some Mary J Blige type rnb, a lot of the more commercial stuff I’m not all that familiar with, and some 1980s pop I eagerly screamed the choruses too! Interestingly, he had either sampled or had on a third deck (there was no hope in hell of getting close enough to confirm) that vintage slice of camembert, Bucketheads’ ‘The Bomb’, with which he peppered his set to great effect.
It was a rather pleasant Sunday morning when you could get a seat and something to fan yourself with, the people watching was...interesting...and a none-too-serious tune selection made it an enjoyable experience.
Unfortunately, the oppressive heat drove me from the club at about 8.30. The club was as full as ever, and the DJ was layering a lengthy acoustic mix of Eminem’s ‘Without Me’, mixing into ‘Billie Jean’ as I left.
I ambled past the Asian doorman...girl...person, and down the stairs to take in a huge breath of cool morning air. Phew! So now I can safely say I know why it’s called Revolting. But nonetheless, it was an interesting sight to behold – it’s an institution here in Melbourne: umpteen hundreds of people packed into a club on a Sunday morning can’t be wrong!