Rock n roll gigs and electronic music gigs are two totally different schools. Arriving at St Kilda’s Prince Bandroom near 11:30pm, a time where most rock n roll gigs are spilling pissed punters out the door, the room is surprisingly near empty – almost depressingly so.
DJ Sizzle winds down his set of RnB and hip-hop staples which sound as though they have been dragged through a dub grinder, none of which are mixed particularly well and are served up without much enthusiasm. One couple half-heartedly takes the floor for about thirty seconds before moving on to the smoking area. The remaining few punters inside either mill around the edge of the dance floor or down shots at the bar. For a Friday night gig it is eerily quiet, even the bunch of hipsters smoking outside seem restrained, apart from the stupid choice of accessories (a Santa hat and ear muffs, to name just a couple).
Nam Vs JPS pick the pace up a little and the small crowd dotted across the dance-floor respond in kind. While most of the crowd are content to drunkenly throw themselves about, a small pocket of about four are a reminder of how dancing is actually meant to look. Nam Vs JPS take turns manning the decks and genuinely get into their set, bobbing about to each other’s track selection.
As the clock moves towards midnight, the lonely dance floor fills slowly. The trend seems to be the harder the track, the less the hipster collective gets into it
As Sampology gears up to take over, his name is projected, twirling onto the three screens behind him. Slow trickles of punters file in from the smoking area but remain cautiously in position on the outer of the dance floor. Considering his popularity and the fact that he released his album today, the fuzzy haired DJ has a much smaller crowd than anticipated. He introduces his set by explaining that it is not only an auditory experience, but a complete audio visual show. After warning the crowd “There is a whole lot of Bruce Willis in this set, I hope you’re down with Bruce Willis”, Sampology gets on with things.
Anchorman Ron Burgundy’s face fills the screen. Unlike many other shows, the majority of the crowd remains rooted to the spot; occasionally shuffling from side to side but mostly staring open-mouthed at the three screens flanking the busily moving DJ. Pounding bass and samples are synched in with some of the best-known figures in pop culture. Spongebob is there, Charlie Murphy is there, and even Billy Bob Thornton makes an appearance.
The constant visual punch line seems to be Bruce Willis but it wears out its welcome pretty quickly. Oddly, the set is light on material from Sampology’s new release Doomsday. Thankfully the infectious “Attack Of The Cats” gets a whirl with accompanying video of laser eyed cats blowing up houses.
A clutch of some of the most popular piano samples of recent times (Miike Snow’s “Paddling Out” and Paul Johnson’s “Get Get Down” for example) are partnered up with visions of a maniacal man playing piano. Perhaps the crowd is becoming more comfortable with the dual media show, or perhaps the pills are kicking in but finally the dance-floor hums with activity.
At times the set does seem to fall a little flat, but as a whole, the concept that Sampology has come up with is actually pretty cool. It is hard to stand out in a crowd of DJs mashing together whatever they can lay their hands on, but with some tweaking; Sampology looks set to carve a whole new niche for himself.
– Madison Thomas
