A couple of Sundays ago we again had the absolute pleasure of playing the mighty Vertex stage at Earth Frequency’s 20th Anniversary Edition at Woodfordia.
Sandwiched between Sun Control Species and Antix on one side and D-Sens on the other, it was a quintessential Earth Frequency Sunday session and a fitting celebration of two decades of Queensland’s longest-standing and best-loved festival.
It was a particularly special moment for Jesse. Not only are they three of his biggest inspirations since the earliest days of his DJ career, but they were also the first artists signed to Open Records for his debut compilation Slow-Release way back in 2007. They basically defined the early sound of the label from the beginning, and to have the chance to play alongside them again, especially at such a special occasion, was truly an honour.
After days of sweltering heat and humidity, the skies finally opened late on Sunday afternoon. It started to shower during the last parts of Antix’s dark and stormy set, and by the time we took to the stage, the rain was really coming in as the storm hit. Instead of scaring everyone off, it was a huge moment of relief for everyone on the dancefloor and the energy was electric. At one point the crowd was absolutely having it and screaming so loud you could hear them over the booth monitors and headphones! We’ve both played a lot of sets individually and together, and we both struggle to think of one where the crowd was that amped. The memory will remain etched into our minds forever.
Then disaster struck. Midway through our sixth track, Weekend Heroes’ classic Fear Factor from Open Records’ Expansion Pack compilation (one of the tunes that gave the genre “bush techno” its name), we heard a huge crackle from the back of house and the sound system went down. The crowd stuck around initially (still screaming, no doubt!) but after about 15–20 minutes had dwindled to a few wet and loyal crew as the production crew scrambled to fix the issue. Eventually they managed to sort it and get the front of house working again, and we were able to continue our set (sans booth monitors), but we decided to cut the middle section to make sure the set times stayed on schedule for the rest of the evening. The crowd didn’t take long to return and we were particularly stoked we got to play a couple of Will’s amazing new tunes that he’d finished especially for the set at the end.
We’d like to say a huge thanks to everyone from the crowd for their amazing vibes during both the beginning of our set and when the sound returned, and to everyone who stuck by us through a wet and wild afternoon. We’d also like to say a huge thanks to the EFF production crew for their hard work in a tough situation, and of course to Paul Abad for giving us the honour of playing such an amazing time slot on the Vertex at EFF’s 20th Anniversary.
This weekend, we decided to rerecord our set as it would have been, as a thank you to everyone who gave us so much amazing feedback and kind words both on the day and since. In authentic doof fashion, the set was recorded live in one take on a pair of ageing CDJ-900s with a broken cue button on the left unit. Luckily we had Will’s schmick new Limited Edition Xone-92, so at least the recording was crisp! Apart from a bit of volume normalisation, we did very little post-production, so it’s about as real and raw as if we were playing it live on the Vertex. We hope you enjoy it, and thanks again to everyone for their amazing support.
Big love,
Boy With Kuch (aka Will and Jesse)
