It seemed so covert. With so many big acts in the country over the long weekend, it was with very little fanfare and razzle dazzle that the #3 progressive house artist in the world was sneaking into Sydney to play a cosy set at The Cross. Very cool stuff. Perhaps unbecoming of an artist of his stature I thought, but still cool. And I’m not just inventing statistics to make this sound good by the way… that’s his ranking in the 2008 Beatport Music Awards. Beaten only by Deadmau5 and Adam K. True!
A few quick words about Christian Wedekind AKA D-Nox. He’s German. In fact he grew up in East Germany when it was still a “repressed communist fun-free zone”, and he spent a great deal of time and effort making clandestine mixtapes for his chum’s parties. He’s been joyously spreading the tunes ever since, and these days when he’s not playing to massive festival crowds around the world, he’s producing and remixing with his mate Beckers, producing an on-demand radio show and running his own label Sprout Music. Oh, and treating unsuspecting Sydney party-goers to “Nights of Music and Mayhem”. The Cross is one of those intimate spaces that we seem to love for our prog house sets in Sydney. Just like Laundry, Art Factory, the Civic etc… But this baby is in the thick of the Kings Cross ‘going out to party for the sake of partying’ district, so random crowds are to be expected. As a Cross ‘first timer’ I was wary… I don’t know why. As far as smashingly good cocktail recipes go, what could be better than a twist of brilliant DJ, shaken over a fun unpretentious crowd? Not a lot, as it turns out!
D-Nox is renowned for reading his audience, knowing what they want and delivering the party goods (I’m talking about the music here, OK). And you have got to give cred to a DJ who sneaks into a venue early and surreptitiously gets amongst it on the dancefloor before his set starts. Which is exactly what he did at The Cross, as D-Nox is no diva. His set started at 2am, so the massed crowd were treated to an awesome warmup from Shades of Grey, then MSG vs Tripitaka with loads of energy in the room already. And a very mixed crowd it was, all having a fine time in their own way, all very friendly, and all very determined to dance and dance and dance!
D-Nox took to the decks like the class clown set loose in a magic toybox! He’d read us like a book and knew exactly what page we were on. Fun, fun and more fun! And his antics were as much fun as the music. He’s dancing, laughing, playing shadow puppets on the screen behind him… Believe me those headphones were not designed to do that! Cheeky, cheeky lad! Is it possible that someone can run that completely amok, and still pull off an utterly flawless set? Oh yes, yes it is! Three elite hours of non-stop prog and tech house, driving bouncy goodness. My big moment was when he dropped in Beckers’ Where is the Love. Huge crowd reaction, yes. In fact at this point I noticed that the crowd reaction for every track was just as enthusiastic. Suspicious, I conducted a pop-survey. Less than a quarter of my sample group knew who they were listening to! And yet, everyone I asked absolutely freaking loved every second of that set, and for good reason. Always good to expose a new crew to the wonders of such an awesome DJ.
I’m not sure what bribery or threats were used to entice D-Nox away from the decks, but sometime between 5 and 6am he moved on to give Marcotix a go! He finally relented, and when I left half an hour later the crowd was still just as pumped. And D-Nox was hanging at the bar with all his new friends, having a fine time. It’s so cool to see a DJ who ignores all the pretensions and is just in it for cool music and good-times. From brilliant set by a world beating DJ, and a crew of great new pals, I’ve had a lesson tonight in ‘realness’ and I’m reminded exactly why it is I love this scene!
