While I had visited Gianpula when I was quite young – a mere 14 at my first ever (and only) teen party – I ended up going to Numero Uno, a club nearby in Ta’ Qali, quite late in life compared to my peers. While I don’t remember who was playing at that introductory party, I do remember hearing Tric Trac by Bristol-based DJ and producer Eats Everything for the first time there, and being impressed.

Carl Bee

His interesting way of stretching sounds to create massive build-ups, then droping into very clean and bouncy rhythms caught my ear easily, but I immediately assumed he would be confined to the “awesome artists I will never see live” category, like so many others.

So imagine my surprise when I was able to see him in a revamped Uno Village in April of this year, alongside 8,000 ravers at AMP: Lost and Found.

Then imagine my actually surprised surprise when I got to see him for a second time just a few months later, once again in Uno, except this time during a much more intimate gig.

Eats Everything had been brought over to Malta again after his Lost and Found set to headline Gringo’s Sunday outing at Uno Village. And after my initial surprise, I realised it made sense; while Malta has had a pretty decent set of clubs for a few decades now, a few clubs have upped the ante and started to compete on an international level, with Uno leading the charge among them.

Revamped as an open air village with multiple clubs and areas, with high end lighting and a killer Funktion One sound system, Uno’s new makeover has had international promoters looking our way. Nicholas Spiteri, director at 356 Entertainment Group, explains how it all took off.

“It all started with the birth of Lost and Found Festival two years ago. 356 Entertainment Group invited top people in the industry to Malta after Lost & Found, so they could come and witness the local scene and what all of our venues have to offer. They were all impressed with Uno, commenting that it’s a unique venue, and categorised it as one of the top venues worldwide offering that garden, open-air feel, while also allowing easy access for large scale festivals. This is when we decided to take over such venue, renovate and re-brand the club on an international standard,” he explains.

If we’ve got the likes of Eats Everything closing off our Sunday nights now, who knows where we’ll be in a couple more years

Attracting the aforementioned Lost and Found festival, alongside Creamfields, IMS, TheSoundYouNeed, and major names like Tiesto, Moby, Steve Aoki, the rebranded Uno Village is set on bringing international talent to Malta on a regular basis.

This re-branding has, so far, paid off, even if it came along with a marketing campaign assumedly aimed at attracting new, male tennis players. But it had attracted Eats Everything for a second time, so all was well.

Gringos has made the Tropicana Terrace, one of the four dance areas in Uno Village, their Sunday church. Worshippers come week in and week out to witness the Gringos team tear through some tech house, deep house, and techno. The ubiquitous ‘Are You A Gringo’ sticker can be seen on many cars around Malta and it’s no wonder, with Gringos staging regular events for nigh on six years now, as one of the Gringos founders, Carl Bee, explains.

“We came up with Gringos in 2010, just a year before launching in 2011. We started out with three DJs in the first year in 2011, and now five years later our team has grown to 10 resident DJs,” says Carl Bee with a smile. “I always believed that big things in life happen when you work as a team and, I must say that the Gringos team is definitely a perfect example of that.”

The team spirit, in fact, is so strong that one of the resident DJs, Carl Lautier, was even celebrating his birthday there that evening. It’s obvious that the Gringos team knows what they are doing; the first few DJs keep it chill, allowing people to settle in and get their drink on. Daniel Blade, who has recently been making waves, started getting the crowd moving with a very appropriate bridge set, dropping in some funky tech-house to bring the dancefloor together and get the people moving.

After Daniel Blade’s gradually building set, Carl Bee took to the stage. Having played with the likes of Tiga, Roger Sanchez, and Dubfire, Carl Bee probably wasn’t too nervous opening for one of the hottest DJs right now. Plus, it was his home crowd. Still, he did not rest on his laurels, and launched into a two-hour set that perfectly set the stage.

Carl Bee’s use of bass-heavy tech-house, blending tracks seamlessly while working the microphone, worked the crowd up. Carl Bee’s confidence and enthusiasm is obvious, probably a good reason the Gringos crowd has remained so loyal over the years. That he smiled and used the mic, distinct from so many DJs who so often remain stiff and disconnected from the crowd, meant for a fun atmosphere.

After two hours of Carl Bee’s pumping set, the people were ready for the Bristol DJ with a big appetite. Yet, due to a delayed flight, Eats Everything was late. Not that the crowd cared, with Carl Bee holding sway. As I turned away from the stage for a moment to find my compadres, I came face to face with the man himself: Eats Everything, with a hurried look on his face and a travel bag in each arm, rushing past me towards the DJ stand.

It truly seemed like Eats Everything, Uno, and myself were bound by destiny. Five minutes later, and Eats Everything launched into his own remix of Green Velvet’s Flash, with the sample about a certain Club Bad, “where all the bad little kiddies go to try to leave their bodies” setting the tone for his set.

I don’t know if it was the delayed flight, the rush, or maybe he was just hungry, but Eats Everything catapulted into his set, melding tracks into each other with ease and bringing the Gringos crowd to a fever pitch.

His style has evolved since I had first come across him, leaning much more towards techno nowadays, but that same groove-heaviness was present, with his basslines evolving over his set, bouncing between tech-house and techno as it pleased him.

The Maltese crowd were up for it, and Eats Everything, just as Carl Bee did before him, held the crowd in sway.

Seeing Eats Everything rushing to the stage behind me made it all the more real: contemporary big name DJs are coming to Malta now – it’s just a midnight flight from Rome away, after all – and they are being received very well by the populace.

With two more international festivals to be held at Uno in the next few weeks, let alone the general clubbing scene, Malta seems to be in a healthy place when it comes to electronic music. If we’ve got the likes of Eats Everything closing off our Sunday nights now, who knows where we’ll be in a couple more years.