In January 2018, Jamie xx was on tour in Australia with his band, The xx. Having been on the scene for some time, he had made plenty of Australian friends. One being fellow musician and promoter, Dan Stricker.

On the Sydney leg of The xx tour, Dan propositioned Jamie to play a special party he was organising. The party was to be held in a now abandoned World War Two bunker in Malabar, South Sydney.

Dan went into detail of how much effort went into making it happen:

“I couldn’t get in there (where the bunker was), the gates were closed, there was a security guard, I had to climb around the rocks, by the ocean, scramble up, bush bash to get there, then take the gear out for two hours, me and two other dudes, and we’re just hearing bullets going over our heads, like we’re in the trenches, we’re in proper trenches, and there’s bullets flying over our head.”

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Footage of the party is rare, but luckily we got our hands on a few snaps of the debauchery.

The party was a roaring success, but was soured by a disappointing post party note, posted on the Siberia Records Facebook Page.

Around 6.30am, someone STOLE our CDJ’S, MIXER, HEADPHONES AND LIGHTS.
Over $6000 of equipment. It was a pretty much free party.
We sold 10 tickets and let everyone else come for free. Over 400 people came.
Jamie xx, Romy xx, Jono Ma, and the Young Turks crew all played for free. If we would have charged normally for a party like this, the ticket price would’ve been massive.

A defeated but defiant Dan went into detail what happened next.

“It was just like heartbreaking, because we put all this effort into this party, and then suddenly thousands of dollars worth of our stuff was gone.”

“Through a friend, I got told this guy knew a guy, that knew a guy, that knew a guy who had just gotten out of jail, I ended up going to some dude’s house, he had like a bung eye, and he had the DJ gear in the back of his car, it was so suss, anyway I got it back a few stressful days later.”

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Read about Sydney’s Hidden Party Scene and Jamie xx’s imminent new full length album.