CLUB NIGHTBy George Buckleton & Mike Atkins

Underbelly:Friday 21st May /// Act Yo Age (AUS), CKC, Echo Company, Sam Hill, Jason Howson, Daniel Farley, Danny G, Joe B, Corey K, Mitch Lowe, Jaycey, Jeffro, Stature, The J.A.M Freqs, Joel Brooker, Jake Jonez

Knowledge of pop-culture is by definition unnoficial, so even a writer on the subject cannot pretend to be any kind of authority on it. -The largest gap in my understanding is dance music. I’m one of those white boys who gets nervous when no one on the stage has a guitar; and so my experience of it is limited to those times when i’ve been too drunk to know which club i’m in, let alone state a preference for which one i’d like to be in. That experience, meager though it may be, is enough for me to know that the gap ‘tween the good DJs, and the bad ones is a vast one, and that these were good ones.

The audience was small, but appreciative when we got there. -The first of the DJs was a professional, and had a good appreciation for samples. Unlike most DJs, however, he had a good sense of how to use them.

Samples from Dr Dre, and Nirvana were used to great effect, because they weren’t overused. -just little seasonings of beats and screams here and there. -There was none of those cheap isn’t-it-ironic DJ tricks. He was also a fan of bone rattling beats, which is what i suspect is what actually got the crowd going, but what would I know?

He had the sort of beats that a real MC could’ve really done something with. Alas, when a MC was brought out, they were trapped in the DJ booth, and were of little effect.

the second guy, -the one in the flannel shirt, knew what he was doing too. He reminded me of that thing that was fashionable a few years back when the synth player in progressive metal bands used to rub their heads like retards passing kidney stones, and make those silly Bruce Springsteen faces as they twiddled knobs. He seemed to be having a better time than the synth players in progressive metal bands from 2006 ever had though.

By that time, the crowd had filled out too. -it wasn’t exactly what you’d call crowded, but it was at least respectable. -There were the usual suspects, -like Mr Disco-Biscuits, who in this case was pretty entertaining. And there was the usual assortment of drunk girls game enough to dance on any elevated platform that they could find. When three of them, plus Mr Disco-Biscuits were perched on the little shelf in front of the DJ booth that the DJs put their drinks on, it was one of the more impressive sights of the night. I didn’t know it was possible for people that drunk to have that kind of balance while moving like Catherine Wheels nailed to fences on odd angles. The efforts of those four made the crowd seem far more significant than it in fact probably was.

Photographs by George BuckletonWords by Michael Atkins

That’s when my age got the better of me, and my stamina gave out. -It was probably an early night compared to the one most of the audience had, I’d bet money that the good time carried on, and even increased when I left (god, what does that say about me?). I remain an outsider, but one who certainly observed something.