T’was a cold, windy and hideously wet evening that the latest Ministry of Sound party tour rolled into Perth and Club Capitol. The Electro House Sessions album was released in August and mixed by one of Sydney’s favourite DJ/producers Tommy Trash and Queensland’s top DJ duo the Stafford Brothers, who finished 3rd in this year’s annual ITM Top 50 DJ poll. The double mix CD was MOS’s attempt to cash in on the fleuoro revolution and it showed with the track selection containing some more pop elements (the likes Digitalism, The Automatic and Justice) than we traditionally expect from Ministry house mixes. To round out the lineup for the tour and add a splash of international cred, new Perth party crew Vegasmode threw their own hat in the ring and added the UK’s Yousef and Tom Stephan.

After the poms were signed up, it was left to local Vegas Mode residents Mind Electric, Stephan Gooch and Rob Sharp to get the party started. After removing fur coats and Russian snow hats, the young, hot and sexy kids emerged from the blizzard outside to start filling a sold out Capitol (one hoped it wasn’t oversold as Capitol frequently does) and the dance floor started to pack up. Vegasmode “are inspired by the worlds most curious and sophisticated clubs, parties, visuals, music and people” and tonight was certainly no exception, well to begin with anyway.

Managing to catch the end of Stephan Gooch, the hyper-colour patchwork crowd was getting excited and were anxious for one of the headliners to start tearing up the decks. First up were the Gold Coast’s favourite sons Stafford Brothers who have been working very hard over the past few years, and it showed with the immediate affect they had on the crowd. They both like to get jiggy on the mixers and were playing everything that’s hot and heavy at the moment – thumping beats, sleazy baselines and lots of electro/tech squelches. The Brothers were able to slip seamlessly between banging electro and some quite minimal house with brother Chris having a penchant for MCing while Brother Matt is mixing.

Next up was Tommy Trash who could have come straight in from the homeless shelter with his mopped locks and looks that reminded me of Hurley from Lost, minus about 300 kilos. The emphasis of his set was party, party, PARTY! And you could tell this from the start. Starting with a slower tempo it quickly built to have the dance floor heaving with Perth’s young and beautiful lapping up every beat. Some echoing Others vs. TV Rock vocals were heard before Stafford Brother Matt appeared at the decks and started to cause mayhem. Quickly ordering some Jager to the stage to quench Tommy’s thirst, he proceeded to stand up on the mixing table to give the crowd some moral support, not that they needed it. Trash proceeded to drop Chemical Brothers’ Do It Again and took his own advice with some more Jager. Next up was a sleazy mix of The Veronica’s new single Hook Me Up which the females in the crowd absolutely adored. With this Capitol show being the second last on the tour it was easy to see what a great time and mutual love was being had between tour staples Trash and the Stafford’s which always definitely rubbed off on to the crowd.

Liverpool’s Yousef has built up quite a repertoire of achievements since entering the industry 10 years ago: he has done everything from promoting to producing and this showed immediately with his sublime mixing and track choices. He started a little slower and darker in his vibe than Trash had set. It was heavy and sparse to begin with until he was ready to get things moving. He must have been given a complimentary copy of the House Sessions CDs as it wasn’t long til he dropped the Justice D.A.N.C.E remix number 18 of 63, MSTRKRFT’s dance floor banger, but then again it could have quite easily been number 43 – Justice’s own remix, they are tough to tell apart at times but whatever it was, the crowd loved it. He then took us quickly to Never Ever Land and back with Daft Punk’s Da Funk, which got this particular reviewer rather darn excited about the oncoming arrival of the French robots.

Yousef then treated the crowd to his talents on the mixer which were quite impressive to say the least, assisted by the new magical qualities of CDJ decks. He then dropped some “Sing Hallelujah’s” over a jungle beat, but unfortunately for tonight’s attendees this was not going to go a long way to absolve their sins.

At a shade after 3:30 Tom Stephan or Superchumbo fame starts his closing set as the dance floor is starting to slow down. Fat Cat has well and truly gone to bed and some of the kids are on their way to join him. Stephan drops probably the most minimal and techy set of the night, running through tracks like Chris Lake’s To The Point and the Danny Freakazoid remix of his own Superchumbo track Fall Out. But only the most committed clubbers were able to continue bumping around by halfway through his set as a lot of the fluoro kids have put back on their wellies and headed back out into the rain to put an end to another successful Ministry trip to Perth. And by the looks of things you wouldn’t want to miss the MOS Annual Day Festival that will be rolling round at the start of December.