As part of 2008 Sony inthemix50 Month 21 clubs across Australia were chosen to be representative of our diverse club scene. The final club in Melbourne to host an event was PHD at Inflation on Saturday September 27th. Some would say hard dance and hardstyle are not the most popular of genres amongst ITM members, however PHD has been around for over 6 years in one form or another, which is a remarkable feat in itself. It has made a successful transition from being a day club to a Saturday night party, and it has survived several venue changes. Last but not least, one of PHD’s residents, Jewelz, was the 9th most popular DJ in the Melbourne top 10 and the 3rd highest polling female DJ overall. So, it’s little surprise this stalwart of the Melbourne dance scene was part of the tour!

I must admit, I was a little nervous going back to PHD after a pretty long absence. I had only been a regular during the day party and recovery period, so most of the punters were as tired as I was and it didn’t matter if you spent most of your time sitting around chatting. To make matters worse, I was heading in to the party after a rather large afternoon watching the AFL grand final. By 10pm I was dragging my feet a little, thinking how nice it would be to go to bed! However, with mikewebster in tow, I went down the old familiar alley that used to lead to Krankin, and descended to the underground.

It felt as though you were hit in the face by the music as you stepped onto the ample dancefloor. The music is hard, fast and relentless! There wasn’t a large crowd, which was a little disappointing, but I guess there were a lot of things on after the grand final and such a busy weekend. Being one of only two hard dance parties on a Saturday I hazard a guess it’s usually pretty busy. The other thing that surprised me was the lack of fluoro. In fact, apart from being the oldest person there, I was also one of the only people in phat pants… any chance of blending into the background was gone!

What hadn’t changed since I last visited PHD were the hyperactive youths who appeared to be double jointed, and they were dancing themselves into a sweat induced frenzy. Chris X had started off the night with some banging hard trance. It was infectious and it wasn’t long before I had joined the punters on the floor, dancing up my own little storm. One of my all-time favourite Melbourne DJs, St Luke was on next. He delivered a superb set of hard trance, broken up by short loops of melody and vocals. I recognised some favourite Steve Hill tracks and even a tiny element of the happy hardcore St Luke is so good at towards the end of his set.

Mr. PHD himself, Soul-T, hit the decks next and the music definitely became harder. Starting off with hard trance, he began throwing in some hardstyle, and with Jewelz set to follow, I could see how this evening was going to develop. I would have loved to have stayed until the end to see how it all turned out, but after a huge weekend it was time for me to drag my weary bones home. If only my legs were as willing as my mind!