Live Review: Alison Wonderland, Motez, Hayden James, AWE, Slumberjack

We arrive in Port Melbourne’s warehouse district on little more guidance than a text from ‘AWonderland’ telling us “shit’s gonna get weird!” Seems legit. A massive queue lines one side of the building. As we shuffle forward we cop a peek at the guts of the building, and our eyeballs bulge at the sheer size of this space. It stretches on for an eternity with an array of food trucks, bars and big-brand sponsors galore. Feels like a mini-festival.

We cruise past a Mr Burger food trucks and past the Smirnoff Bars toward the stage, which is illuminating in the distance. Perth trap lords Slumberjack are bringing fire. They hype the room for another AW album collaborator, AWE. The US DJ/producer raises the stakes with a cracking selection of trap bangers.

Hayden James kicks back the groove with house-based selections, mulling over some signature swooners and ending with a crowd pleaser by Adele – Rolling In The Deep (Jamie xx Remix). Motez takes over, mixing trademark deep basslines and dirty percussion with big-room house bangers; mixing original Motez sounds with huge tunes such as Rhymes by Hannah Wants & Chris Lorenzo. The bass is so delayed and distorted that it shakes our insides. 

Alison Wonderland enters the stage to a massive ovation. True to her style, she hypes the crowd with vocal samples from new album Run, mixing them quickly into cuts from What So Not and crowd favourites from Rae Sremmurd and Dead Prez. Her skill and speed are on show via linked GoPros projected onto the LED screen behind her. The visuals warp and turn to pan a sea of fans losing their minds. Wonderland churns through her strong repertoire of hip hop and trap classics from the likes of TNGHT and Salva, and then builds the energy up to her biggest single to date, I Want U. There are about a hundred muthas on shoulders and, when the track enters, a bunch of lunatics start crawling up the pylons! By far the biggest response to any track played on the night, she mixes out with the Cashmere Cat remix of Miguel’s Do You….

The musical selection is eclectic and the build-ups are intelligent. Wonderland pulls into Gesaffelstein’s Control Movement, slowed down to around 110bpm, and pulls it slowly to 126bpm – the energy peaking in the main break. The room goes ballistic. She drops it into Disclosure’s new club killer Bang That to great effect. The AW rig and laser show flash light and colour into hundreds of over-stimulated eyeballs.

Suddenly it’s over. The lights turn on. We are escorted by security out onto a dark street in the middle of nowhere to find our way to the after-party.