The ground floor stage featured nine bands that fall under the former label (with varying degrees of accuracy), and this was where I spent most of the night. The cast in order of appearance on this stage was The Eleventhour (up first, ironically), Sons Of Abraham, Fallacy, Template, Mushroom Giant, Sydonia, Tinman, Rook, and Sleep Parade (which is exactly what the rest of the city was by the time they finally played).

Everything I saw and heard downstairs on the basement stage was pretty unwaveringly heavy. On this bill (in order) was Nothing, Be'lakor, Scar The Surface, Darkest Dawn, Ruins, Picture The End, Earth, Watchdog Discipline, and Terrorust. I managed to catch Be'lakor's set as well as a fair bit of Nothing and Picture The End.

'Nothing' is obviously not a band name chosen with promotional purposes in mind, and their music matches this. Not exactly accessible, they used hardly any vocals and moved through a bunch of heavy music. The structure of the music was interesting, as were some of the riffs, but it was nothing massively special. Although, I could appreciate what they're about, and they probably deserved to play to a few more people than they actually did. And I thought frontman Kahwati's parting comment "we are Nothing" was a bit too harsh a self-criticism.

Be'lakor are very influenced by Opeth, quite a bit beyond mere homage, but at the same time they do have their own sound. They create some great colours and vibes, and they do it well. They're not as good as Opeth (who is?), but I'd recommend them to metal fans and others. Although their stage presence was pretty flat, I'd met these guys before and they really are top blokes. They have headlined gigs in the past, and they too were probably playing in an earlier time slot than they deserved.

Picture The End are one of those "new-school intense five-piece metal powerhouse" bands, in a similar vein to bands like Lamb Of God. I'm not really into that type of music and I'd never heard these guys before, but I was pretty thoroughly blown away by them when I wandered downstairs randomly later in the night. So passionate, positive and tight, and incredible stage presence all round. You could tell they all really wanted to be there, and they were extremely nice and approachable off the stage as well. Check this band out if you're into this type of music, and perhaps if you're not.

The Eleventhour were by far the youngest band playing at Switchfest. I have to say their music was not very original, but they were fairly tight, and there was no on-stage apathy from any of the four members. There were a few unexpected moments of intensity in the set that turned a few heads. Vocalist Danny Boy worked the crowd well, although we didn't give him a lot to work with.

Sons Of Abraham were good, although a bit too derivative of Cog. They were very tight and obviously have it together as a unit, and they were great blokes off the stage. One song was an almost identical rip-off of the bridge in Porcupine Tree's "Halo", and when I jovially raised this point in conversation with drummer Sean Taylor, he chuckled and said: "really? I haven't heard any Porcupine Tree, I thought that was the most original thing we did!"

Well it wasn't, but they did have enough originality to keep me listening. They were quite a good band to watch.

Fallacy's alt-rock music was almost painfully generic, and I must admit I left to get dinner after two or three songs. But vocalist Crystal's stage presence was very engaging, if a little over-theatrical. In any case, full credit to her for being one of only two female band members in a gig, and a scene, utterly dominated by males (the other being Earth keyboardist Sarah).

Template were every bit as good as I'd been told. They gave us a bunch of quality prog-pop-rock tracks ("pop" in the sense that they're quite song based with a lot of melodies) with a lot of odd times, tight grooves and killer guitar playing from the left-handed Mike Mills. If I didn't already know who the usual drummer was, I wouldn't have even been able to tell that Dean was filling in for this gig. All three musicians played incredibly. I hung out with these guys after the set and they're genuine legends.

Mushroom Giant were the most "out of place" (ie. "unique and eclectic") band of the night. Essentially they're instrumental post-rockers who aren't too concerned with the illusion of genre rules. Their opening track was a little boring (to me anyway), and after that they were doing some really amazing stuff and I was engrossed the whole time. These guys were the only band whose music made me forget that I was actually at a gig. It was a real breath of fresh air. Not that all the other bands were bad, it was just great to have a bit of diversity in the night.

Sydonia were just awesome. I'd only heard one song before and remembered it being fairly average, and I had no idea that they were this good. Their music is dark yet colourful, unexpectedly heavy at times, and thoroughly engaging. They've drawn a lot of influence from Tool, but they are unquestionably their own entity, and not quite like any other band. They had the biggest crowd of the night, and this made more and more sense as their set progressed. This was one of the absolute highlights of the event, and they are certainly something special. An exciting band who know exactly what they're doing.

Tinman were somewhat disappointing musically. I'd heard that they were very good, but basically their set was a string of mediocre, one-dimensional heavy grunge songs that simply didn't bring anything original. That said, they were unbelievably tight and together, which kept my attention along with their onstage fervour and crowd interaction. If the music itself was better, this band would have made quite a big impression on me.

Rook are similar to Tinman, and perhaps a little more interesting musically. They had the love of the crowd the whole way, and played a reggae song which went down particularly well. Vocalist Forbes McKail told everyone he was having trouble with his voice on the night, but he sounded fine to me. Again, if their music was better, they could well have been a highlight of the event.

Sleep Parade finally got on stage when unfortunately most people had left the venue. These guys have something very special, kind of in the same general territory as Karnivool and The Butterfly Effect, and I'd honestly say they're just about as good as those bands. Amazing writing, great melodies and so much colour. When they concluded their set and the whole of Switchfest at 4:10am, frontman Leigh Davies thanked us all for staying around to see them, and we were very glad that we had. Seriously, these guys are nothing short of a remarkable band, and if you don't want to hear of them again, I'm sure I can find you a nice big rock to live under.

So there you have it, this was a truly memorable night. The number of great bands in the one place at the one time, the friendly nature of pretty much every band member I spoke with, the positive vibe running through it all... time and money very well spent. Having to get the first train home at 5:30am was totally worth it, and in fact only enhanced the experience. I went home very happy indeed.