It is amazing the transformations that a club night can go through in just a few months. Home nightclub seems to be one of the only venues in Sydney to consistently rearrange their club décor to keep it fresh for punters. It’s not just the bar that’s changed though: many of you reading this will have a preset image of Famous in your head, including the styles of music they play, the people who attend the club and what kind of night you would have if you went. Having not attended Famous since mid August last year, I too was in for a bit of a shock.
Upon arriving, I immediately noticed the type of clubber who attends Famous has changed. Most clubs have their popular heyday. Sublime had it, Kink held the crown for a while and Onelove still proves popular. Famous came along and became ‘the place to be’ amongst many eighteen and nineteen year old clubbers who were just getting into dance music. Whilst many will snigger at this thought, I personally have no qualms with eighteen year olds who are just getting into the scene and who flock to the same venues. Many of us were them at one stage, including myself and probably a lot of you reading this. The crowd at Famous on Saturday was a lot older, less pretentious and just there to have a good night out. This factor will make some happy and some unhappy – sure the crowds will never be as big but it seems to be heading in the direction of Sublime in providing clubbers with a night of fun, whoever you are.
Before Dirty Laundry took to the stage, Goodwill pumped out some commercial electro house, fused with the odd tech house track which I was pleased to see. At this point the crowd was very enthusiastic, yet not being able to go upstairs meant that everyone was forced to be in the main room. The dancers took to the stage accompanied by excellent lighting, which provided an Ibiza like feel for the club goers. Dirty Laundry then took to the stage in a hyped up manner, ready to party. Whilst they did an excellent job with stage presence, the venue really isn’t ideal for live acts. The audio was next to shocking; it was definitely more suited for prerecorded tracks rather than live vocals. The crew got the crowd going with their remix of Federico Franchi’s Cream and Princess Superstar’s Perfect.
However, they tried a little too hard to mash up song after song, and as their set progressed, the crowd got thinner and thinner. By 1:30 am, the club was half empty: going back to August last year, I distinctly remember sweating like a pig at 1:30am and not being able to move because 3000 other people were crammed into the venue. Not having even one balcony opened and only two of five different rooms to choose to spend your night meant I got bored a little quicker, and so too was everyone else. Whilst in its prime, Famous was too crowded. But it has gone in the complete other direction and really needs to pull a few more people in to have something to offer. But there was still plenty worth staying for at this point: I admired the effort of Dirty Laundry who put on a solid show for the crowd. They continued to play their fusion of electro and 90s retro, and in any other circumstance they should have packed the venue out and kept the crowd there until the end. However, there was a lack of audience response due to poor audio, leaving the crowd a bit confused and unsatisfied.I wandered upstairs to the view room where the vibe was very different. The thirty or so people in there had a lot more time for the DJs. The track selection was up to date with what’s being played at dance festivals here and abroad, with a greater variety of styles such as indie/electro and tech house, where the beats weren’t shunned by excessive vocals. Overall it was an enjoyable night, but like many club nights before it, it seems Famous is losing its appeal to its target audience. But I’m sure Future has got a lot more tricks up its sleeve, and we’ll see what they’ve got in store for 2008.
