If you found yourself last Friday night kissing strangers, chasing a glassy that just took your full pint, and dancing your heart to kick-arse dance music until 3:30am then waking up later that afternoon thinking that was the best night ever – there’s a good chance you were at Transit Bar for Exposed 2008… or you were asleep dreaming about it.

Exposed was a collection of the finest Australian DJ talents for one crazy night in Canberra – acts included Staky, Duchess of Danger, Beat It, (one-half of) Terrorvision, Kiss Off Electric and Exposed competition winner Adam “Billy the Kid” Miller .

Even before the acts got people grooving to their hot tracks, there was a certain buzz about Transit, it had people in a kind of suppressed excitement until it broke out in one young man rockin out his stuff, running-man style to songs playing from the bar.

Eventually, the tension broke when Duchess of Danger stepped up to the decks with some classic elektro sounds, pop samples all with a fat house-groove beat keeping it together.

Things slowed down to a softer groove, for lovers to slow dance, and the party animals could rest while Staky queued up her set. Then it picked up a bit with a Daft Punk-style mix of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance followed by some groovy RnB. People loosened up, the drinks flowed and conversation became less audible and coherent as Nick from Terrorvision joined Staky for a mash up.

After 10:30pm, as anticipated for a typical Friday night in Canberra, it livened up as the bar started to fill with people finishing work, shopping and early shows – with Terrorvision and Staky giving us all a soundtrack to unwind to.

For the next hour-and-a-half, the Staky v Nick Halden (terrorvison) duo mixed up some awesome stuff as the crowd fluxed with their need for air and nicotine. Along almost this entire stretch, one man took up the entire dance floor, knees bent, tongue out and roboting the night away.

Very near midnight, with Transit close to capacity, Beat It tagged Staky and the two nicks phattened up the beats with some trip-hop for about half an hour. After this, Beat It took control for just over an hour with some astounding classic electro beats before Adam “Billy the Kid” tagged in and shook things up with hardcore rhythms – in particular his kick-arse remix of The Presets’ This Boy’s In Love. His big beats kept even yours truly dancing away for almost the full set, with some interruptions from a tall Canadian man’s ongoing commentary of the night’s activities, and the occasional space cadet telling me his version of the Theory of Special Relativity and how it can save the drug shortages in Australia through cold fusion.

Now, as exciting as the opening of the night was, it could be said that the party really started after 1:30am when the bar was very nearly literally packed to the rafters, all loudly shaking their funky stuff.

At around 2am, anticipating the closing of other events and bars (or possibly hearing the 40th person in the toilet yelling “Nah… yeah! Transit Bar!”), the crowd thinned as the punters apparently uniformly decided to go out for some “fresh air” as *Kiss off Electric” geared up to keep things rolling ‘til the wee hours. Upon returning from their dose of “air” many punters were more than delighted to find the boys of KoE busting out their amazing mixes, blurring the lines between their own originals and mash-ups, for an almost perfect mix of pure electro.

From all my dancing, and a hard night’s work of writing, talking about people’s nights, adventures… and theories, I was tempted to call it in and get some sleep. However, with some words of encouragement from Staky I carried on, as something special was coming.

So, sitting on my comfy, squishy footstool, I watched and nodded along to the end of Kiss off Electric’s set. Noticing only one of them packing up, I started to clue into what was coming next… also I was behind Adam when Staky asked him if he wanted to come for the finale.

At just about 3:00am on the dot, Staky jumped on the decks with Sean from KOE and I found myself strangely urged to dance some more. Beat It added in some flare before the big finish of Duchess of Danger v Staky spectacular. During this amazing set, drenched in sweat, woozing from fatigue, and unable to leave until the proverbial space-cadet’s brain returning to the galaxy thanks to NASA – mainly from the enormous queue outside – I soldiered on through 5 dance-offs with a strange creature: part man, part music, all jelly. As he wiggled, his crazy stuff, not losing eye contact once, I did my best to out-dance him with an attempt for the first (and only) time of hardjumping to the biggest mashed-up mix of Utah Saints’ Something Good 2008 only to find myself jumping into a thieving glassy and rebounding into the wall.

I stood there for a moment, and gathered my thoughts – this truly was the greatest dance-party-Friday-night-extravaganza I have ever been to… albeit the first.

As I left, I was fooled by one last joking challenge of the jelly man, and sauntered out the door. Exposed will long be held in great regard in the memory of this reviewer, and no doubt in the dark corners of many of the punters’ subconscious minds.