Until the heat death of the universe

'...until the heat death of the universe' has been a favourite saying of mine for sometime. I often struggle to fit it into a sentence and it normally requires an awkward explanation (involving the story of the sale of "He Died With a Felafel in His Hand’s” script rights for the cost of a beer) but I like it all the same. Well people, it finally came: the heat death arrived.

Yesterday, on New Year's Day, Sydney hit 46 degree Celsius. That's right: 46 degrees. In Sydney. WTF? My mates were despondent, I was elated: how often does it hit 46 degrees in Sydney... I know!!! about once every HUNDRED YEARS. The heat was physical, an almighty wind crushing people to the ground. Today Dad showed me some plants in our yard that had BURNT! from the heat. The liquid in the leaves must have fried the plants as it heated up. Crazy stuff.

So what is the favoured activity on Sydney's hottest day in a century? CLUBBING! WOOT WOOT. New Years day is also Sydney's best party: Field Day. The day is organised by the Fuzzy Production team, held in Sydney's Domain, a park bordering the harbour, and runs from midday to 11pm. The first half of our group arrived at Field Day around 3pm (after chilling in a fairly pleasant super apartment towering over Oxford St). Then we realised how wrong we were. It is not physically possible to bust a move in that heat. It took me a while to figure out that people's super cool robot moves were a result of their Havianna's melting on the dance floor. Tumbleweeds across the stages being manned by some of the globe’s best house/breaks DJs (Roger Sanchez and the Stanton Warriors suffering killer midday sets = empty). By 5 or 6 things had settled down and the fun began, first with the live action of Infusion and Stereo MCs, then Kid Kenobi/MC Sureshock, Derrick Carter, Bob Sinclair and closing with Krafty Kuts.

Highlights of the day were the Stereo MCs, Kid Kenobi/MC Sureshock and Bob Sinclair. The Stereo MCs had their heyday back in 91/92, which along with Rob Birch's heroin look, gave the impression of watching the Rolling Stones play baggy/hip house... but man do they do it well. It was schimck, well organised, and the never once tedious or tacky. A fine feat for a band some see as a one hit wonder... some 15 years ago. Kid Kenobi's set was made by his MC. MC Sureshock was the first MC I saw that I liked. He seems genuine, enthusiastic, excitable and honestly excited to be there. He never betrays his Australian accent and more importantly adds, not distracts from the music. The set was a fairly stand-up/solid MoS Breaks set with a highlight being Bloc Party 'Banquet' (breaks remix).

Bob Sinclair... this part of the night was a mess. Everyone was split to the four winds... it seemed that Krafty Kuts was going to be cancelled and things were in disarray. The massive heat of the day gave way to 'gale force winds' in the evening. We had moved from Heat Death to Hurricanes. This caused the closure of the second stage causing mass confusion amongst the Krafty Kuts loyal. However never despair: Bob Sinclair was there. Once our group had reformed we barrelled on with the other 20,000 revellers to the sound of one man and his records (try whistling this... da. da da. da da da da da da da. da. da da... be the love generation). Cheesy but super cool. Jonathon Wall (Fuzzy productions owner) then appeared on stage and announced that he would forgo his annual closing set in honour of Krafty Kuts who then proceeded to drop a consistently healthy set for the remaining 90 minutes of the festival. High fives all round.

Weird and random: Fuzzy chose to close the event with a Kiss cover band playing 'Rock and Roll All Night'... WTF? yeah... probably the first chink in an otherwise flawless Fuzzy reputation.

A great day all round and a great start/end to a year.