Rave: Aztec

Date: Saturday, 18 April 1992

Production: Children of the Vortex

Venue: State Sports Centre, Olympic Blvd, Sydney Olympic Park

DJs: Sasha (UK), Pee Wee, Jumping Jack, Nick the Fish, Robin Knight, Biz E, Phil Smart, MC Nick Techno Terrorist

Description: Catchphrase – mixing technology from the very beginning to the present. I was very excited going to this rave, having read all about Sasha I was most excited about seeing him. When I arrived it was difficult to see him as he was 2km in the air. I might have saw a cigarette glow. He also didn’t play his trademark house, he played breakbeat. My memory of his set is tic tac breaks, lots of bass and the occasional screaming diva. I think he came on after Pee Wee who had just played the best set of his life, so it was a big change in style. Some of the punters seemed a bit bummed. It was a large venue, podiums everywhere with a 3D laser with a dolphin going all night. It was a good night, pity I didn’t get to see the great man up close. Sub Base Snarl: I was at AZTEC one (the one at homebush) the one that had the TechnoFear laser doing its thing? It looked amazing! The things I remember about it were the vast number of colours - as typically up to that point lasers I had seen were green or red, or had different beams with their own fixed colours - this was FULL RGB, with colours morphing and changing constantly - pastels, browns, all sorts of colours I'd not really seen before 'in light'. And different to the way many club lasers are usually presented - there was no fog to speak of, which makes the laser 'beams' coming out from the laser itself visible - this was all about where the beams hit the almost invisible, see-through mesh screen/scrim - this made the shapes the laser was drawing appear to 'hang in space' in the middle of the room - and they were often drawing things meant to look like 3D shapes - rotating cubes etc - which looked quite convincing given the light shapes were just hanging in space - not being drawn onto a flat wall. Don't remember anything about the music or who played! LOL