INFECTED MUSHROOM!!!

If you know Infected Mushroom, then you already know everything.
But I'm going to tell you anyway.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

The place was pumping, full of the clubbing social elite, the hardcore Infected fans, the black Goths, the brightly coloured party Goths, and the die hard Doof crowd. Total melting pot and totally lovely - it was all about the music. Israeli psytrance at its absolute best. Everyone hungering for the beats that drive your blood and the euphoria of total mind control.
Shangri-La came on, and the energy in the room jumped to a new level. Mostly I remember dancing like a maniac and watching the laser show from the balcony above the stage - lines of light scything through the air, cutting through the smoke making patterns like world maps, snakes of electricity writhing on the heads of the crowd. I was tripping out of my skull and I hadn't taken anything. Yet. I am very rarely tempted to go chemical and I haven't had anything in nearly a year and a half because the comedowns write me off for days, but I thought this year's Infected warranted an exception to the rule. I'd been a little low earlier but Shangri-La was the perfect set and it picked up my mood to dizzy happiness, and I decided to fly for all I was worth.

An hour later when Infected came out the Boy and I looked at each other and raced down stairs. Sure you get a better view from the mezzanine and there was more room up there, but the sheer energy of the sound and the tribal mind of the crowd being conducted, literally conducted, by the main guy are just too compelling. You've just got to be in amongst the frenzy.
Then over the drone of near subliminal bass, silence descended.
The guitar sang, and screamed, and cried - toyed with us, with the thousands of minds starving for the music we knew would come.
The beats rolled in and the tension grew, and the grins widened, and they wound us up, and wound us up, and up and up... hold it... Ready? And scream! They dropped that first beat, the room took off and my brain exploded. Mind control? Abso-fucking-lutely! The music literally takes over your limbs and you have no choice but to move. And the man is up the front like the puppet master with thousands of people utterly in his grip. You'd be a fool to resist it because it is just too good.

At the end of the set, everyone is simply knackered because it is so emotionally exhausting being picked up and wound up and fired into space over and over again. Physically draining and mentally fatiging and yet so damn good! Yup, it's a two hour mass orgy and a half...

It is the forth time I'm seen them now, and it is the highlight of the year. March is now Mushroom Month as much as Boxing Day ever became LOTR Day.

When they finally shuffled us out of there, we walked from the warm fug of the cavern out into the new dawn. Darling Harbour was an amazing sight and the waterfront was lined with the bodies of the night before, looking like the Monday morning dregs of a doof, dirty and smiling and wondering why it's so damn quite all of a sudden. I love that feeling - it's a strange release.
Once home and showered, I went to sleep to the sounds of ABC Classic FM's "Life is Beautiful" cd. It was like a balm for the soul. And perfect.