Live Review: The Upbeats

The prospect of attending a drum'n'bass gig held at Geisha was an enticing one, having never heard the sweet sounds of bowel-loosening bass and driving drum loops pumping from its sound system – and especially so with the headlining act being one of New Zealand's finest purveyors of the genre, The Upbeats. Having produced big tune after tune for close to ten years, including three artist albums and a stack of single releases, the duo - who also go by the sensational monikers Terror Snake and Downie Wolf - have certainly amassed a sizeable following.

With Perth's considerable Kiwi population and Geisha's modest size, the night was destined to be limited in providing brock-out space. Halfway through N1's solid set the dancefloor was already filled out, but the crowd were clearly up for it and responded to the flow of killer tunes with rowdy abandon. Mickey B picked up where N1 left off and played out an ideal warm-up set that didn't upstage the main act but kept the energy of the now sell-out crowd peaking. The Upbeats were represented by Jeremy Glenn aka Terror Snake on the night and no time was wasted in rinsing out some big tunes like Noises and Amit's Killer Driller, with the at-times excessive, but not intrusive MCing of Stylee backing the mayhem. There were ear-to-ear grins everywhere and the rollers sounded unbelievably good on the Geisha sound system. Overall, a rousing endorsement for future d'n'b gigs at the venue that hopefully Loaded Dice can continue to provide.