Live Review: Goodgod Super Club Presents: Kenji Takimi, Nite Fleit

The crowd started to fill the studio space at the Sydney Opera House as Melbourne producer Nite Fleit had taken to the decks with industrial techno beats that would not have been out of place at a warehouse rave. Most of the partygoers (20-somethings and under) were decked out in recycled '90s get-up, with such an overwhelming majority donning three-quarter pants and sneakers like an unwritten hipster dress code.

For a Vivid LIVE event inside a venue like the Sydney Opera House, the lighting was completely off. The DJ booth had been placed in what looked like half a built caged cube, in the centre of the room — like a spectacle for the audience to walk around and admire from all angles. This, coupled with the dim lighting, empty space and lack of seating added to a sense of disconnect between the audience and the performers. It wasn't until underground Japanese artist Kenji Takimi took to the stage when lights appeared through billowing cellophane towers in four corners around the dance floor. And still, the event felt it'd been run by someone who'd just thrown his or her first party — there were no visible seating or bins, except for one sad solitary round coffee table filled with empty cans of beer by the exit doors.

Takimi's set felt a lot like the running of the party — scattered, disjointed, disconnected and totally incohesive. His vinyl set jumped between '80s electronica and disco, to industrial, moody house and then back to '80s ballads, but the first hour of his three-hour-long set might as well have been the one song on repeat for 60 minutes. There was very little variation between tracks for such a large portion of the night that any time he did decide to play something (on the opposite side of the musical spectrum) it came as such a complete shock to the system; the body's absolute last response was to dance.