Vibes on a Summer's Day at Western Springs Stadium

By STEPHEN JEWELL

"Happy Waitangi Day, youse fellas," says Warren from TrinityRoots. "You know it's Bob Marley's birthday."

There is perhaps no better place to hold New Zealand's first Vibes on a Summer's Day than Western Springs Stadium, the site of Marley and the Wailers' legendary 1970s concert. Up the hill in the main arena, Dan Sperber and Luke Casey's Relaxomatic Projections launched into their Lazy Sunday favourite, Every Day Is Like Sunday, a perfect tune which should have been retitled Every Day Is Like Bob Marley's Birthday.

Elsewhere, London DJ Spikey Tee lay down some bass-heavy grooves in the Rizla Arena while in the kingsize sandpit which is the Hanger dance arena, Aotearoa's own dubmeister Pete Mac, aka Dub Asylum, played a selection of tunes as colourful as his trademark Hawaiian shirt.

Mac was joined for a few numbers by a usually aggressive battle rhymer, who announced: "I'm going to chill today because it's Waitangi Day".

Fortunately, the sun decided to shine on Vibes and the overhead clouds meant that the weather didn't get too hot.

Unfortunately, Auckland clubbers failed to show in any great numbers. They had a choice of paying $75 and seeing a solid but not stellar international line-up plus a bevy of dependable locals - which included House of Downtown, Sola Rosa and the mighty Fat Freddy's Drop - or catching UK DJs Gilles Peterson and Norman Jay and perennial Auckland favourites Nice & Urlich for free at the St James' spoiler party in the Domain.

The majority of the city's clubbers voted with their feet.

The bizarre truth about the Auckland club scene is that Nice & Urlich - New Zealand dance music's answer to Morecombe and Wise - could attract more punters than all of Vibes and the Domain's international stars put together.

But those who did choose to shell out the bucks for Vibes got their money's worth from Mr Scruff's "everything including the kitchen sink" style of DJing. Later on, X-Press 2's impressive six-deck extravaganza kicked up a storm in the Hanger.

The headliners, Louie Vega and Kenny Dope, are virtual household names in House music and fans would shed blood to see them perform their tag team DJing.

Perhaps discouraged by the lacklustre crowds that turned up to his DJ tour last year, Dope stayed at home, leaving Vega to do the predictable live band thing. And as the sun set on New Zealand dance music's busiest day in recent memory I couldn't help thinking what Bob would have thought.

The title of one of his tunes comes to mind, One Love. While the dance community might preach the love, the clubbing industry is driven by money. Ultimately, the biggest loser would be Auckland's dance scene if a quality festival like Vibes on a Summer's Day declined to return to our shores.