It’s that time of the year again. Yes, the ITM Top 50 DJ Polls have been and gone and the winners have been announced. To celebrate this occasion, ITM and Rise nightclub joined forces to put on a massive party last Saturday night. And what a damn good party it was. Boasting a varying line up of this year’s award winners across the spectrum of genres, the night also headlined Nik Fish from Sydney. Whilst this may have put many people off, it also seemed to attract just as many, if not more, and so the night was a resounding success.

The line up consisted of a good cross section of genres and first cab off the rank was Riki, who played a selection of progressive to electro house tracks. Straight from the moment doors opened, the club began to pack out quite considerably and so by the end of his set, Riki was playing to a good number of eager punters who had already made their way into the club.

Following on from the electro house tip was Micah who worked a blend of breaks with quite a few crossover electro house numbers. The massive track of the moment, He Doesn’t Love You – Hook n Sling got a play which was definitely one of the standout tracks of his set. He clearly demonstrated why and how he was voted as the number two DJ in W.A with a mash up set of the two genres that got many of the early birds in the house straight to the dance floor.

As the clock struck twelve, a break in the music allowed for the presentation of the top 5 W.A DJ awards to take place. In fifth place were the Signal Drivers who are a well respected breaks outfit, fourth place was taken out by well known DJ Riki who is a resident at The Church, third place was one of Perth’s best drum ‘n’ bass DJ’s Greg Packer, second place was breaks DJ Micah who plays at a multitude of gigs around town and in first place was Kenny L.

With the presentations attracting the attention of the entire room, a huge cacophony of cheers, shouts and whistles ensued before the music returned. Because of the range of beats on offer throughout the night, it could have been quite easy for the music to be quite jilted in terms of flow. However, the line up times couldn’t have been more suitable to accommodate for the different styles and the resultant was a well structured music program which flowed considerably.

Taking the room from an electro house and breaks tip and gradually into a much harder vibe was Simon Barwood, who threw down a top notch set full of energetic tracks. His selections were full of intense build ups and drops and he had the crowd present and those on the dance floor in particular, right in the palm of his hand. Well, so to speak anyways and it was apparent they were hanging on to his every tune. Each mix would bring in a new track and each time the new track was completely in play, it would attract another wave of cheers and the occasional blatantly off key whistle from the crowd before him.

Headlining the event was Nik Fish, the well known hardstyle DJ from Sydney who has toured to Perth a number of times now. He wasted no time in increasing the tempo and pace tenfold, ok well maybe not tenfold but it certainly felt like it, with the extreme hard and fast pace every one of his tracks seemed to go at. If you didn’t really listen properly to his set, you would be forgiven for thinking that every track just went bang-bang-bang but there were slight variations amongst his fast paced tunage and these were from the slightly trancier to the more techy – both of which the crowd seemed to really dig. Towards the end of his set, Fish proceeded to take the room on a mini drum ‘n’ bass excursion, which was completely unexpected given the sounds he was just playing. The crowd loved the racier and lighter change in pace and seemed to be completely up for the random and very extreme change in genres mid set.

Greg Packer used the three AM timeslot to really work the system with a fine blend of drum ‘n’ bass. His mixing and selections in terms of both flow and key were quality to say the least and so the crowd were treated to a rocking set; which kept the club and especially the dance floor very busy for its entirety.

DJ’s Kenny L and Rousa had the last sets for the night and each of them used their respective hours to take the party to close in their own fashion. It was an excellent night for the award winners, Inthemix, Rise and the punters who were treated to the different sounds throughout.