It’s a rather sad thing for me to admit, but it feels like it had been over a year since I’ve been to a good breaks party. I’ve seen some alright shows here and there, but it’s not like it used to be. And with all the hype about dubstep, I was a little worried everyone else was over breaks and I’d seen the last of the big parties here in Melbourne. However, I still managed to get a posse of new-to-breaks workmates together, and put my reputation on the line promising them a night of good music and great fun.

Although I look old enough to be someone’s cool older brother, after some to-ing and fro-ing with getting people’s IDs (and what happens with those scans anyway?) we missed a few early acts I wanted to see.

We got to the top level of Brown Alley just as School Of Thought started, and pretty much hit the dancefloor harder than a news journalist hits the brandy bottle. The floor was absolutely chockers, and any fear of disappointing my friends with a bad choice of gigs vanished in an instant as Mr Thought played dancefloor slammer after dancefloor slammer.

He played a wide range of beats from Freestylers to Rico Tubbs to his own compositions, even throwing a bit of dubstep in the mix. Everything he played got the crowd hyped up, and there were masses of smiling, happy faces jumping up and down, throwing their hands in the air, and cheering wildly. It was a very friendly atmosphere, with people coming up and screaming “how good is this!?” or just spinning around and giving two thumbs up.

Drumattic twins stepped up with some weird Russian intro, and the place packed even more people in as they delivered their own brand of funked up goodness. Featuring what sounded like live remixes and vocal mashups, the Twins dropped bomb after bomb. My friend went mental with the Prodigy Hyperspeed remix. I loved when they played some of their older stuff like Smokin’ but the biggest floor mover was Feelin’ Kinda Strange which they teased out fantastically.

I did try to explore the other rooms. Worthy was playing some nice tunes in the outdoor smoking area, but it was too crowded for my liking. The side room on the top level was playing some groovy stuff, but I never stuck around for long enough to get a good feel for the sound. I got stuck in the Mez level at about 4 waiting for a friend and heard some of Maya & Vanya, and enjoyed it, although I was itching to get back to the Drumattics.

I was exhausted at one stage, and planned on leaving at 3:30. But 4 o’clock and then 5:30 came around and I was still on the dance floor, grooving to the sounds of big bad breaks by Snowie and Citizen.com, two of my favourite Melbourne DJs. I mean, what’s not to like about a Thunderstruck remix?

I am so happy I took my friends to this event. They’ve heard me play breaks, they’ve been to some smaller shows, but this really was their first big show, and all of them had a ball. I was stoked too – I made some friends, reconnected with some people I haven’t seen in a while, and most importantly any doubt about the breaks scene I may have held have been vanquished by not only excellent music, but an awesome crowd. Bring on the next party!