The night started fairly simply; a few drinks before the cab arrived, checking the camera equipment and, after all the usual things you do before you go to a club/pub/restaurant, I was off. I jumped out of the cab at the Ferrari shop, walked over, had a quick look to see if there were any boerewors rolls available for later (if you have been to Mercury you will know what I mean) and then I was at the bar, which quickly leads to bar etiquette. You don't see a guy with a camera in a drunken state and grab his camera so that you can take a fake pout pic of yourself, then drop the camera messing up the lens and halfway spoiling a dude's night before it even starts. Anyway, it's all about the music.
I was impressed by our South African DJs. On the night our DnB DJs kept toe-to-toe with probably the best DnB act there is; Andrew Wright, Benjamin "Drumsound" Wigget and Simon "Bassline" Smith. I enjoyed the main performance, but usually if you have an "international act" it will totally overshadow the "local act" with bright lights and the volume and bpm turned up a bit - but not this time in my opinion.
I was man alone in the club in my own little world (okay, I had a buddy there but he was hunting), just nodding my head slowly to that one beat in the track. Much respect must go to DJs like Niskerone, Hyphen, Counter Strik pushing the DnB scene in South Africa. The way I look at it if there was no Niskerone, Hyphen etc, we wouldn't be getting Drumsound & Bassline Smith or recently Deadmau5. It was just a thought I had while nodding my head to that beat.
Okay, I can give you the whole "how Drumsound & Bassline Smith started", which you're probably going to read on another website, so I won't. I'm not going to speak about how hard or easy it was getting to the bar, because I always get my drink!
I can tell you how I felt. All I can say is it was a feeling of awe; these three guys basically took the drum and bass scene globally to the next level, intertwining dubstep along the way. They're a bit like our local acts Niskerone or Hyphen pushing the scene. I don't know the track lists that they dropped, I'd be able to pick it out if someone played it to me; I can't show you how off the chain the crowd went (thanks to the drunken camera incident), but I've realised that this is the first time in a while that I've been to an event where I noticed the local performers stepping up to the plate, so to speak. To say that we never had talent here is obviously a lie, the man tells us, it's more of our talent that will give others a run for their money but no conspiracy theories here. We don't need fancy clubs with jacuzzis in them - we just need a place like Mercury and the music - and to teach drunken people manners about grabbing things.
