All though I'm in Australia and separated from my DJR raving crew I was not going to let that spoil my New Years Eve. It was a chance to experience NYE in a new country. I'd heard about the Adrenalin event and I had decided that it was perhaps the best thing happening in the city that night. but for some reason when I left the house it slipped my mind, Luckily I was wearing my DJR T-shirt and had my whistle anyway, This was mainly because of the fact that if I hadn't worn it on NYE the other DJR members would have killed me in cold blood :-) I started off the night by going into the city to out the celebrations that where happening in Victoria Squire, which for non Adelaide people is one of the main streets running through the city. A massive street party had been arranged and they had live bands, fireworks and stalls etc.. At the stroke of Midnight I was in the squire to check out the firework display which was quite good. After the firework display had finished I left my family and headed down to meet up with my cousin. He works at another one of the clubs in the city called "02", After saying hi to him I went for a wander and while walking down Hindley Street I heard the distinct sound of Drum & Bass !!!! Then it dawned on me about the Adrenalin event. Lets just say that I didn't waste any time getting my ass down to Traffic and sorting myself out with a ticket to get in. The on door price was $65 that's about £28 for people reading this in the UK. The bouncer on the door kindly let me have his ticket for $50 (£20) !!! that's the cheapest NYE ticket I have ever purchased which made me question weather the event was going to be up to scratch or not. I soon found out that it was more than I'd expected !!!! I finally got inside at about 00:45 and by that time it was still pretty empty so I took that time to have a quick wander around. In the main room the dj was playing slower old skool tunes and I grabbed a can of Red Bull to pick myself up a bit. Red Bull is pretty effective but it is damn expensive !! Not as good as Kick but it had to do. The main room had a very good sound system and the lighting was pretty cool, there is the main dance floor and an area above where you can look down on the action. I suddenly heard a beat which was coming from outside and it was above 180bpm so I needed no other invitation :-) The first set up outside was pretty small but very good all at the same time. 2 x Technics & Pioneer BPM 500. Everyone was absolutely loving it !!! Erazor was playing a really hard and fast set which was in a New Skool Gabba / Freeform style. The tunes that are played over here originate from a similar source and style so I could relate with it and I just went mental !!!!!!! Some of the tracks he was dropping where amazing and he kept switching from really hard gabba to a little more reserved but still pumping freeform style stuff. His set had a bit of an Old Skool flava too, some of the tracks he was throwing in had a very 93-95 happy hardcore feel. TOP NOTCH !!!! After that I went round the corner to find the main outdoor stage. The pictures that I took and have posted on www.thedjr.com really don't do it justice and it was a damn site better than it looks, It wasn't as big as the outdoor stage at Slammin Vinyl but they didn't really have the amount of space to play with. DJ Sonic who's from the UK was on the wheels of steel and he was playing a Drum & Bass set. The atmosphere was very lively and even the Red Bull was cheaper outside !!! As I'm more of a Hardcore / Gabba fan I had a quick chill then went back to rock to more back round the corner. It was still the Erazor on the decks and he was still rockin the place when I got back there. but around about 02:30 - 03:00 (I'm not quite sure) ISM stepped up. His set was full of very hard Gabba, some of the tracks he played sounded very like Scott Brown's style and it was great !!! I danced non stop through his entire set and only stopped to grab a few Smirnoff Vodka's an some Red Bull to keep me going :-) They kept having problem with the power tripping out and I think it was perhaps down to the extreme volume but it didn't spoil the atmosphere, Everyone was that up for it it didn't matter. At around about 04:30 Vagas stepped up and by then I was ready for a break so I went to chill out for a while and check out the inside room. not much happening in there in the name of Hardcore so I went back outside and rejoined the dance floor for the next instalment. By this time it was only the die hard ravers left and the set the dj was playing was extremely hard. He kept moving the BPM up and down but it gave me the chance to cool down while bouncing to the slower stuff :-) The beat kept above 160 all the time and must have peaked near to 220 BPM !!!!!! Once again there where a few small problems with power but nothing to major. At around about 05:45 I realized that the train that I was supposed to catch left about 10mins later so it was then that I decided to make a move for the exit and go home and get some sleep :-) I finally got home at about 07:00 and got to sleep at around about 07:30. The venue was very well set out and although it was a little small the atmosphere was amazing all night. big thanks to all the crew who worked to put on the event. while walking up to the train station I spotted another venue that people who where wearing the wrist bands where entering, I'm not sure what was happening in there but it sounded like Hard house. I had a very good night and it proved to me that the Aussie ravers are as passionate and as crazy as the UK crew !!! I spotted lots of people I recognized from seeing pictures on the RaveAdelaide.net forum. All the picture that I took form this event are up at http://www.thedjr.com/Adrenalin_nye_2003.asp
