Summerdayze, now in its 3rd year, is well established amongst the summer festivals and consistently attracts sell out crowds. This year, for the second year in a row, Summadayze 2007 was set in the beautiful surrounds of the Supreme Court Gardens and on the sort of perfect summer’s day that makes Perth’s summer festivals world-renowned on the international Dj circuit and the reason that those well-travelled artists keep making it back to our isolated city.

As each summer, another festival appears, it seems Summerdayze has positioned itself with a strong marketing force focussed on providing for the anthem- loving punters.
Coming to Summerdayze you have to remember that you’re there for the party. The festival has occasionally been the subject of scorn by many aficionados in the oft exclusive dance music scene, being a festival as much about the guys with their tops off and muscles flexing and the many girls wearing as little as humanly possible, as it is about the music. Nevertheless with a relaxed party atmosphere, the crowd was friendly, happy and just looking for a good time.

The main stage was an impressive display, with a graphic screen providing accompanying visuals to the music, although perhaps some visuals left a little to be desired in a generation that expects their VJs to provide more than screen-saver league pac-man images (looking at you Bob Sinclar…).

Locals Darren Brias and Adam Kelly started the party going to a sizable crowd, bringing people to the dance floor early and opening the day with some fresh sounds that were hard for the big international guns to top. As often is the case in Perth the locals were the highlights of the day.

Bodyrockers, even though they were playing in the peak of the heat really worked the crowd and predictably had hands waving and rousing cheers for their 2006 dancefloor hit ‘Like the Way you Move’.

Next up was Ibiza legend, Judge Jules stepped up to the decks and played a good set full of electro-house influenced tech-trance. The judge was a surprise outstanding performance for the day off the back of a recent lull in his decade long reign as king of the superstar Djs. His interaction with the crowd, though slightly egocentric, gave the crowd the lift and interaction they needed to peel themselves out of the shade of the trees and start to dance up a storm and it was nice to see a Dj visibly enjoying themselves and not too proud to show it! Perhaps one word of advice to Judge Jules though, listen to the sets prior to yours, the catch cry of the day may be “Put your hands up for Detroit- Not AGAIN!”. Big-ups to the crew of Breakers sponsored by Smirnoff, who got a mini show going in the Judge Jules crowd, throwing down some funky moves and adding a great vibe to the event with their jump-up attitudes and big smiles.

Hybrid – easily the highlight of the day, finally made it across to the West after a number of Eastern States appearances in recent years. The only complaint of their solid live performance could be the frustration at such a short set, one hour just wasn’t enough! With the Summerdayz lineup launching Hybrid to a post- Judge Jules crowd on the main stage there was an initial thinning of a crowd having difficulty changing dance genres to a darker moodier breaks sound than could have been expected. Perhaps a more intimate and smaller stage inside a more acoustically supportive tent environment may have served the 4 piece line up better but whilst Hybrid may have taken a while to get going and facing an unsure audience, once they did the common sentiment is that they were amazing, some of the best moody breaks heard live in Perth in a long time.

Come 6:30pm it was time for Axwell to serve up his sound of the ‘Swedish House Mafia’. Axwell lived up to much of the hype and gave the main stage exactly what was required to please the masses as he pumped out massive tunes remix of Faithless ‘Insomnia’, Kings of Tomorrow ‘Finally’ and his monster remix of Hard Fi ‘Hard to Beat’, whilst perhaps there was nothing ground breaking in his show and the word “cheese” may have been bantered about with his name attached, he certainly had the Summerdayze ‘summer sound’ down with his crowd growing as the sun slowly descended.

Finally the crowd swooned to Bob Sinclar with his commercially polished Euro-Dance, his long Fabio locks and his sultry accent that had the ladies screaming at his opening microphone question “Let me ask you Perth, are you the Love Generation?”. When the crowd heard ‘Rock this Party’ come on and the evening breeze cooled the hot sun burnt bodies, people started climbing on each other, into trees, onto bins and waving their hands to his Caribbean Cocktail meets Ibiza Beach Party summery sounds.
A sound perhaps appreciated by many but for this reviewer the temptation was to head towards Tocadisco for something a little more gutsy(caught a glimpse of these guys and they rocked the party). In the end though it was the crowd who supported Bob Sinclar by packing around the wonderful Summerdazye Stage loving the late setting sun and party tunes provided.