Lost Baggage 1st Birthday @ The Cross, Sydney (05/10/08)
Long weekends are the best. You get to sleep in, you get the Monday off work (or uni), and there’s always shitloads of awesome stuff to go to. This long weekend was no different. But anyone who wasn’t at Lost Baggage on Sunday night might as well have not had a long weekend at all, because it was the only place to be. Not only did they have international talent Paul Ritch and Yousef headlining, but there were plenty of great locals such as Virginia Le, Murat Kilic and Emerson Todd, and it was their first birthday – party times! Then add in the awesome sound system, the uber cool decorations (whoever’s idea it was to put a circus carriage behind the DJ booth – I salute you) and the fact that half the club dressed up in theme and you’ve got yourself one awesome freak show… erm, I mean circus.
Melbourne’s Virginia Le, who may as well just move to Sydney with the love she’s getting up here (and let’s face it, the weather is much better up here as well), warmed up the bassbins in the Bump Lounge beautifully. Shuffly, funky tech house such as Stimming’s wonky remix of Safari by Lee Jones and an old Swag classic sat perfectly alongside deep, melodic house (including some now obligatory Spirit Catcher and Booka Shade’s Mandarin Girl) and a touch of floaty progressive, making for a quality opening set.
Ben Korbel was up next and to put it simply he proved why he’s still one of the best DJs to ever come out of Australia. Playing with the kind of precision, maturity and dexterity that many DJs can only dream of, Korbel followed on brilliantly from Virginia Le, gradually stepping up the tunes from deep, warm tech house to dark, crunchy, grinding minimal tech and pulsating, tribal-infused beats. I shit you not, I thought I was going to drop my guts at one point with some of the basslines he was pulling out.
John Devecchis took care of opening duties in the main room, and provided an excellent alternative to Korbel and Le if you like high quality house music of all varieties. Across his three hours, Devecchis weaved his way through just about every kind of house out there (barring hard house, though that would have been pretty awesome if he did that too), from deep, chugging and funky (think Miss Fitz’s excellent Colici) to warm, melodic and spacey, and chunky, techy and mechanical. It was a lesson in how to play a good warmup if I ever saw one.
Yousef took over at 1 AM and proceeded to turn everyone’s brain to mush with a stunning three hour set. Covering almost the entire spectrum of house music, he took the crowd on a ride that was so compelling that I almost forgot to watch Paul Ritch! There was plenty of dark, crunchy, glitchy tech house goodness such as Dubfire’s remix of Grind House by Radio Slave, but his history as a tribal and house DJ shone through as well, with lots of percussive, rolling beats also making an appearance. Add to that splashes of uplifting, beautiful progressive house (including the almost tear-jerking Sasha remix of Destroy Everything You Touch by Ladytron), brain-melting acid house (*Nic Fanciulli’s* Squirelled, anyone?), bumpy party tunes (_The Whistler_ by Claude Von Stroke never sounded so good), thumping techno (props for being the only person I’ve heard play Adam Beyer’s dub of Phil Kieran’s I Love You, Yousef) and a few classics (I’ll never forget the cheers when Man With The Red Face came in) and you’ve got the makings of a classic set.
Oh and did I mention the guy is an absolute machine behind the decks? No? Oh. Well…three deck mixing, loops, effects, you name it, he did it, and it sounded fucking good. It definitely wasn’t a case of trying too hard like can happen when a DJ goes mental on the trickery. Instead, everything he did was obviously well-considered and designed to complement the music, not overpower it.
Meanwhile, France’s Paul Ritch was completely obliterating a jam-packed Bump Lounge. Ritch’s pulsing, wompy basslines, devastating effects, ballsy kick drums and crisp, sharp percussion came to life on the Bump Lounge’s soundsystem, and the crowd completely ate it up. I don’t blame them, it was pretty friggin’ awesome. And on top of all that, he played his remix of Shonky’s Time Zero, which has been flattening dancefloors for months now.
Murat Kilic and Emerson Todd had the honour of messing with the punters’ heads for the final portion of the night, and both did an equally good job of providing the musical equivalent of a frontal lobotomy. In fact, if anyone has found my brain, please send it back to me ASAP, I need it for exams. Murat went straight for the throat with growling, aggressive techno and pro-tech, dropping all manner of head-caving nonsense, including James Harcourt’s belter Call & Response. Emerson on the other hand chose the deep and slightly more subtle approach, laying down quality bouncy, clicky grooves of the tech house and techno variety that just burrowed into people’s brains and gradually sucked them dry – it was kinda like having a tick on your head, but way more enjoyable.
Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go get some sleep, my head hurts. Happy Birthday Lost Baggage, I hope that I have the occasion to review your second, third, fourth, and fifth birthdays and beyond.
XBenX says...
I was impressed with Emerson Todd's close as well. Im still searching for a grip too.