Smirnoff Experience

Tonight’s gig at the Temple Theatre is the last date in the first run of the Smirnoff Experience series of events. If you’ve been abroad or living up a gum tree for the last six months, then you might be excused for not knowing what the Smirnoff Experience is about. To most clubbers, however, the name has become synonymous with cutting edge club-nights all around Ireland, representing house, progressive, trance and, tonight, the harder end of dance music.

Indeed, though most people still prefer to use the well-worn hard house term, it’s a tag with which the Temple Theatre residents, Jay Pidgeon and Orbit – as well as visiting UK spinner Anne Savage clearly feel uncomfortable.

For example, Orbit’s warm up set in the Temple’s main room has more in common with the kind of dirty, twisted tribal house the likes of Steve Lawler are renowned for dishing out. Meanwhile Pidgeon, who ends up playing for four hours in the Crypt makes few if any references to the sped up basslines, cartoon samples and happy hardcore influences the music has become unfairly stigmatised by.

Instead, the native Dubliner, who currently resides in the UK, assimilates trance, techno and, even classic hardcore into his relentless, teeth-rattling beats, with a new version of rave classic ‘Age Of Love’ popping up in the mix. On the evidence of the crowd that hangs on his every move, Pidgeon has also built up quite a considerable following in his home town, and is a name to watch over the coming months.

Meanwhile, in the main room, Scouse legend John Kelly is spinning his own distinctive brand of hard, fast and uplifting trance, flanked on all sides by specially installed Smirnoff Experience monitors, podium dancers and air funnels. It makes for an amazing spectacle, a scene enhanced by the presence of the Smirnoff Experience cyber stilt walkers, striding through the audienc – and by the fact that the crowd are going completely ballistic for Kelly’s selection and his showy interaction.

“Dublin is one of the best cities in the world to play in. In fact it wipes the floor with pretty much every other city, “ Kelly says afterwards. “It’s the Celtic thing. The crowd are always so soulful and up for it. I always enjoy playing the Temple. The people are unbelievable; sometimes when I play to a crowd, it feels like work, but tonight, the sheer elation out there just blew me away.”

In the main room, Anne Savage is living up to her name, whacking down slabs of ferocious, jacking techno that have more in common with Chicago’s primal side than with Trade. This is the real thing!

With the screams of the audience at times threatening to drown out Savage’s hard-edged set, it makes for a thrilling finale to one of the Smirnoff Experience programme’s most exciting nights.