“I’m not really into techno personally, but Rob Hood was fantastic” – that was the verdict of Shelter co-manager Gaz “Drunk Monk” Williams after witnessing techno legend Robert Hood drive the Void crowd wild with his punishing signature sound of hard minimal beats.

Saturday June 7 2008 will be remembered as the day when real techno finally came to Shanghai. In a country where the scene has been dominated in recent years by the “minimal” fad, it was satisfying to see the man who started it all off back in 1994 touch down in the country for the first time and finally get the recognition he so richly deserves. The Inventor of Minimal Techno was in town and he was about to rock.

Void residents Ben Huang, and a somewhat star-struck Nat Alexander had kicked off the evening with two solid sets. Unfortunately torrential rain, always a feature of June in Shanghai, had encouraged many to stay at home and the dance floor was a little sparse before midnight. By the time Shanghai Ultra got on the decks, the crowd was starting to swell considerably – the summer downpour was not enough to stop Shanghai witnessing one Detroit’s finest at work. Ultra warmed the crowd up, dropping a couple of his own tracks, and resisting his natural urge to play harder sounds, and by the time he handed the decks over to Hood, the anticipation was electric as the crowd spotted Hood preparing to let fly.

Hood started with a seventies-sounding drum solo which piqued the crowd’s interest before going straight for the jugular and pushing the BPM right up with a track from Surgeon’s Basic Tonal Vocabulary on Tresor. From then on in Hood delivered a powerful, driving set the likes of which Shanghai had never heard before. It was a wild evening as the BPM climbed above Shanghai’s average, and once on the dance floor Hood kept you there mercilessly, locked into his irresistible groove. Over two hours of screams, whoops and cheers later, Hood stopped the music – but the crowd was not about to let him stop.

A musically intoxicated Nat Alexander and Shanghai Ultra saluted Hood and amid smiles and cheers all around and everyone pleaded “one more tune”. Hood, played the consummate showman and did not let his fans down, getting back on the decks for a final blast which drew the loudest cheer of the night, and ironic cries of “plus 8!, plus 8! Rob!” from Shanghai Ultra. Rob eventually finished around 20 minutes later leaving a satisfied crowd cheering as the decks wound down.

Hood’s set and the crowds reaction was the perfect illustration of just how powerful techno music can be when delivered by the right hands. There will no doubt have been at least a few in the crowd echoing Gaz Williams’ sentiments about Techno not being their cup of tea, but are surely converts to the cause after Hood’s awesome display of hard, precise and funky electronic rhythms.

Check out pictures from the night here .

Download Shanghai Ultra's warm-up set here (tracklisting here) .

Stay tuned for Void’s next underground mission…

Pictures courtesy of Ben Huang and Ryan Pollack