Live Review: Desiigner, Ivan Ooze, Mim, Liz Cambage

Australia's basketball queen Liz Cambage is responsible for kicking it off tonight behind the decks. She opens with Kanye's Bound 2 and follows up with some of the most popular 2016 hip hop/rap releases. Unfortunately, there are a few points where the sound quality is lacking, but this is completely out of her control and issues are quickly resolved as the set progresses. With quick glances across to what seems to be her mates, she relaxes a little more thanks to their encouraging screams. It's just a treat to see this sports star shine in a totally different field.

Barrier clingers don't budge from their spots, but there's some vigorous head-nodding happening as soon as Mimi takes Cambage's place. It's fantastic to see two female DJs perform in a row. Her song selection is great and Mimi's engaging to watch — dancing around behind the decks and rapping along to the tracks all the while with a big smile plastered on her face.

Ivan Ooze's DJ tells us, "We're gonna vibe for a bit," and then plays that annoying air horn sound that's heard at the start of a ton of hip hop tracks followed by Kent Jones' Don't Mind. Ooze and his hypeman, who's making sure to keep a tight grip on his beer, run onto the stage and open with Hooligans. These guys get an A+ for energy. The venue isn't filled to capacity yet, however, between the three of them they're able to get most of the crowd moving. Cue more air horns and an explosion sound effect then it's into the next track. Ooze and his counterpart shake a few hands with punters in the front row and, the next minute, there are three young ladies having the time of their lives up on stage until a crew member escorts them off shortly after. Next, a dude gets on stage and literally begins sliding across the floor like a slug. It's a very weird time. Fire is pretty intense and Ooze gets the crowd to jump up together when the bass drops. A few interesting lyrics in this one, especially "I'm a sex pistol boy/Bang my bullet into who I want". Ooze's hypeman announces that it's in fact his (Ooze's) birthday today and, just as the candles on the cake have been blown out, his DJ blasts 50 Cent's In Da Club (of course).

Desiigner and his crew have clearly been well informed about the 'Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!/Oi! Oi! Oi!' chant and punters are stoked about it. Within the first 30 seconds, he's already jumped into the crowd and is taking his shirt off. His hypeman is standing on the barricade and Desiigner bounces around onstage, pulsating with energy. He takes another dive into the mosh and raps from there, with more "Aussie!"/"Oi!" chanting every couple of minutes. The bottles of water laid out on stage are evidently not to be drunk, but rather used to douse the crowd with. Is Desiigner's flow a little hard to understand? No doubt. But whatever he's lacking in audibility, he makes up for in sheer entertainment. First he's spinning around, then he's flinging the mic into the air, jumping into the crowd, standing on the barricade all while rapping Tiimmy Turner. Within the first few seconds of smash hit Panda, it's already complete mayhem. Around 50% of punters in the mosh leap up onto the stage and completely wild-out with Desiigner for the entire song. He's totally on board with it, hugging fans, taking selfies and going insane for people's Snapchat stories. Punters go nuts to Champions as he somehow moves through the front area of the moshpit and winds up in the middle of the venue. He ends with "No matter what it is, we all family. This is 2017, we don't give a fuck about the bullshit... everybody got problems, even Desiigner got problems, but we still be positive."

Lights on, his DJ drops Panda one last time and punters stand around, desperately uploading their selfies with the man of the hour onto Instagram.