Review – Revolution 1st Birthday @ Rise
For a year now, the Rise nightclub has been presenting a different face to its Saturday night lineup. Taking elements from all styles of electronic music, Rise has managed to pull of a difficult feat in Perth – producing a night with a span of different genres of music, week after week in order to please its punters.
It can be said, on the first anniversary night of Rise that this has been a veritable success. Although during the past year crowd capacity has often fluctuated, it can be said that the dance floor has always been fairly solid throughout.
Simon Barwood carried the opening to slot, starting gently and ending with a complete smashing high. Covering everything from the old to the new, Barwood is a master of the 4/4 progression. As classic after classic hit the floor, Barwood interspersed such well known tracks with new up and coming club favorites up until 2am in the morning. Simon manages has the unique ability to play music that pleases, and his fans lapped it up. The Rise dancers were also in effect, and though they are always particularly good, this time it seemed that they put in extra effort for the night.
Packer is a definite favorite at Rise. His ability to keep the crowd moving is second to none, which is not surprising given the years of solid effort he has put in to get to this point. With dnb more and more popular these days, Rise did well by making it a regular feature at the club. Spanning a collection of tunes, from Matrix’s American Beauty remix, to his own tracks – such as the club favorite “She Breaking up” with its ethereal vocals, to a new track, Breakout – cleverly mixing dnb with an electro breakdown, Packer kept the punters in rapid footed appreciation. MC X-Sessive laid out his message over Packers set, and, as always, did an amazing job of it- X-Sessive just gets better and better, and undeniably sits in the higher echelon of Australian MCs – no argument.
After the repletion of the dnb saga for the evening, Rousa took to the floor and banged out his brand of hardcore. With a recent influx again of hardcore into the Perth scene, Rousa showed why it is that this genre is far from buried and his skills continue to be a force to be reckoned with. These days, Rousa is undeniably one of the most popular hardcore DJs in Perth, and his style is very easily accessible even to those who “don’t really get into hardcore.”
Revolution has done well. To be able to continue in its format of cross-genre music for a year is a testament to the hard work of all involved. It is a rare thing to find a club in Perth that has such success in the multiple-genre realm, and all of those involved can give themselves a good clap on the back for its success. Even given that Rise may not be every electronic aficionados choice of places to party, it is hard to begrudge the fact that it really does have something for everyone, and, that that something is almost always on such an amazing professional level when it comes to the caliber of DJing and MCing during the night. With more special guests, support from the punters and continuous great performances from a professional local contingent, there is no reason to believe that Revolution will not still be pumping its mosaic of tunes out onto James Street in another years time.
Tags: greg packer, perth, rousa, simon barwood, x-sessive