In an effort to see Kevin Saunderson I did, less than an hour ago. Even if I dissed the Planet for all my literary neurons are worth, I still couldn’t fully convey my current impression of that cesspool of ignorance and stupidity. But hey, I’ll give it a shot…

I turned up to the Planet to see a large line at the door, and requiring some dosh I walked down to BankSA at Gawler/Pirie. By the time I got back, I saw two bouncers dragging a guy flat on his back down the side street. Nothing too exciting, I thought, just your average drunk. Then a car full of guys scream up in a Corolla, jump out the car and approach the bouncers - I thought it was the drunk’s friends out for a rumble, but the fact they carried radios and arrested one of the bouncers kinda demolished that theory. Seems the guy wasn’t flat on his back simply through consuming too much ethanol, but rather through providing a rapid deceleration force to a bouncer’s fist. After the first bouncer was “thrown in the boot” I saw cops arrest at least one more. Great start to the night…

Back into the line, trudging slowly forward, when one of the bouncers actually managing to stay out of police custody comes past and starts booting people out of the line for being dressed too casually, myself included - I was informed that waiting in the line would be a waste of time as I had zero chance of getting let in. Checking out the rest of the line as I hadn’t really done yet, it soon became clear that it may as well have been the line waiting to enter the Prissy Couple of the Year contest. Never mind the fact that I was there to hear and appreciate Kevin Saunderson, or the fact that nine out of ten people inside wouldn’t know or care who he was, and would spend half his set thinking “Why doesn’t he fucking play that Real McCoy track!”

Now I’ve heard the attire argument a million times before, and I know if someone turns up wearing a “Fuck the Po-lice!” t-shirt, covered in tattoos, wearing steel-tipped boots and has a Browning bulging out of sprayed-on black jeans, it’s fairly reasonable to deny entry. However, I was tidily dressed, and was not offensive in the least. This didn’t seem to matter to the bouncer though, whose order from up on high was to treat the entry line as a catwalk parade for pretentiousness.

IMHO, it would be a fairly good bet that if Kevin Saunderson lined up outside they’d refuse him entry as well. F*ck Planet, I’m off to Recon.

– Courtesy of CJP