Curve Ball hit Carriageworks on the long weekend, filling the mid-winter hole left by the demise of We Love Sounds some years ago. The event saw jovial spirits celebrate Australian artists and the fact that we get a day off work because it just happens to be some old British lady’s birthday.

Curve Ball – which is also name of an excellent Honey Cocaine song – was certainly an ambitious project for its inaugural year. The set-up consisted of one main stage in Carriageworks, with imposing concrete defining the rustic nature of the sizeable space. Still, the stern walls provided plenty of comedown corners and dark spaces for canoodling couples as we arrived just before sundown. With the disappearance of mega-festivals like Big Day Out, Future Music Festival and Stereosonic, Curve Ball is indicative of Australia’s move towards boutique-based events – parties that tip-toe the line between colossal and cozy, where you can still write yourself off with minimal cross-stage movement and hear an EDM banger to two between more ‘tasteful’ electronica acts.

Walking into the venue, we saw Nicole Millar with the refreshing addition of a live band, giving life to her ARIA Award winning efforts on Peking Duk’s festival anthem ‘High’. After that, my heart started hurting from drinking too many Red Bull vodkas so we sat down outside and listened to ‘Kiss It Better’ by Rihanna on Spotify which made everything okay again. It was here that I ran into my old pal Ella Maximillion and made the crucial discovery that sunglasses with in-built eyebrow piercings is an actual thing that exists in 2016. I put them on for three seconds and felt like Drazic off Heartbreak High and it was an all-round fantastic experience for everybody involved:

hey guys check out my new sunnies completing my life with built in eyebrow piercings! ?????

A photo posted by PRO-MODERN LOVE (@ella_baby_blue) on Jun 10, 2016 at 7:01pm PDT

After that, we went on a little adventure and by that I mean that we walked into the next room to Curve Ball’s local stage, featuring some of Sydney’s favourite selectors. G Coo kicked things off by dropping hip-hop faves spanning everything from Tinashe to Big Punisher aka the first Latino rapper to ever go platinum with his phenomenal 1998 debut album Capital Punishment. That set the mood for the rest of the day – classics mixed with new school heaters, including several spins of Drake’s ‘One Dance’ and fresh DJ Khaled collaboration ‘For Free’. We can’t get enough of the latter – and despite the chilly weather conditions, ‘For Free’ made the dark stage feel like sunny Miami for a few minutes, transporting punters to the land of pastel backdrops, button-down shirts and quality cocaine.

Sandwiched in between the DJs were Heaps Decent emcees Ravin and Rassel Cool, who switched the pace with tracks inspired by the more nonchalant sounds of 90s East Coast hip-hop. Despite the deviation from the club-heavy DJ sets, the crowd responded with enthusiasm as the two spat with precision onstage – no unnecessary hype men required. Nes and Adam Bozzetto then brought us to bangers central with the likes of Fetty Wap and Pia Mia, and before we knew it we had virtually spent the whole day in this little side stage of local DJ sets. Woops. We did duck back to the main stage to catch some of Cosmo’s Midnight, whose glitchy take on electronica was aided by trippy visuals on the colossal screens, and ‘Walk With Me’ served as an upbeat highlight of the day.

Closing out the main stage was the day’s only international performer, ZHU. The crowd was heaved vehemently to his catalogue of ominous house thumpers, with his set featuring a mysterious bro playing guitar solos in a drapey hooded garment that looked like it was out of Kanye West’s 2012 closet. Oh yeah, there was some other guy playing saxamaphone solos. ‘Working For It’ and ‘In The Morning’ both earned responses from the crowd, but unsurprisingly, it was his breakthrough hit ‘Faded’ that earned the biggest cheer – and while it might not match the Western Sydney rap remix, ZHU still closed the day with a nocturnal bang.

All in all, Curve Ball was a nice time with a well-rounded line-up that thankfully included vocalists and emcees on top of DJs and producers. However, at times the main stage felt too large for the acts, who may have benefited from a more intimate stage set-up. After the event we went to a strip club and then a Kanye West tribute night where they dropped ‘Blame Game‘, which was really fantastic although I was a little bit sad that they didn’t include Chris Rock’s skit. After that, the Uber driver on the way home blasted ‘Bring Me To Life’ by Evanescence. Good times, great classic hits.