The word ‘hardstyle’ is often met with two distinct responses: the first, and probably most common response is a screwed up nose and the words, “Eeeew, Hardstyle.” The second, slightly rarer response is a raising of the eyebrows and a gleeful “Hey, yeah!” This is occasionally teamed with a punch in the air. Upon hearing the news that the Dutch hardstyle team of Steph, DJ Isaac and Headhunterz would be dropping in locally at PHD, my reaction was that of the latter variety, punch and all.

My plus-one and I are two avid Gabber fans. To put it simply, a night out listening to hardstyle for a Gabber fan could be likened to stopping and smelling the roses; what hardstyle lacks in energy and speed it makes up for in wonderful production. With this in mind we were both very keen to give this event a go, but neither of us could fathom who in their right mind would pay $80 on the door. We concluded that had we not been offered the chance to review to the event, and in doing so, evade the ludicrous door charge, we would have not even considered attending – regardless of the reputable main acts.

Entering Inflation, we were presented with a wafer thin female DJ by the name of Steph, complete with skintight black leggings, stilettos, boob tube, and diamante encrusted headphones. The drooling male ravers in the front row gazed in wonderment, wide-eyed, unable to look away, probably due to the intensity of the gurn. Steph churned out a consistently solid set dancing behind the decks between mixes and shaking hands with anyone who would reach up, but the crowd was generally non-responsive. Even Technoboy’s Ti Sento failed to ignite the floor. She concluded her set with an epically cheesy rendition of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power Of Love, met with little reaction from the crowd, despite her enthusiastic attempts to work up any kind of atmosphere. As she made her way from the decks and DJ Isaac began to prepare, the MC crowed: “Alright, give it up for Steph here at PHD Black!” It was at this point that I realised just how pathetic the turnout had been for the black get-up. There were about five people in the crowd who had made a genuine attempt to wear all black, in keeping with the spirit of the party, Steph, Isaac, and that was all. Was this party even meant to be a black themed party or was “Black” simply the name of the night due to the dark nature of the music? My question remained unanswered.

DJ Isaac followed, the crowd welcomed him with massive applause, but still remained stationary – I was left to pick up my jaw off the floor as the headliner began his set, and no less than six punters pulled out a variety of different sized video cameras and started filming… the entire set. This trend bothered me a little bit initially but grew to irritate me more throughout the night. At what point does one re-watch all that footage? Call me old skool, but whatever happened to the days of living in the moment, dancing your ass off, paying your respects to the DJ, and “Reach for the lasers! (Safe as f*&^k!)?” I was saddened to see one chick who knew practically every word to every song in Isaac’s set, standing there with a camera. I couldn’t help thinking, “If you’re such a big hardstyle fan, why not enjoy yourself a bit more?” Isaac’s song choice was fantastic albeit peppered with the odd unnecessary remix here and there. This included a remix of Limp Bizkit’s remix of The Who’s Behind Blue Eyes that would make Pete Townshend want to slash his own wrists. Other than that, the music was excellent, but Isaac’s attempts to hype the abysmal crowd up were only marginally more successful than Steph’s.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the crowd whipped itself into a bouncing frenzy – not at the start of Headhunterz set, but quite spontaneously halfway through. It would appear that all of those who had ‘dropped’ had finally kicked in. I’m unsure what everyone was so sad about during Steph and Isaacs set, but for whatever reason, Headhunterz seemed to have the key, dropping bombs left right and centre. During Scrap Attack, he would unashamedly cut the volume after the vocals “Def… Qon…” and point at the crowd, demanding they scream “ONE!” at the top of their lungs. Highlights of the set included Tonight, and Project One’s Rate Reducer (Headhunterz remix, requested by yours truly.) At this point in the night DJ Steph had made her way out into the crowd to pay her own respects to her contemporaries, dancing the night away and take photos with fans. I was impressed that even the internationals could come out and mingle with the crowd. She, in fact, had more enthusiasm for the show in her little red painted fingernail than most of the punters that rocked up.

The night was, in theory, a success. The music, and the mixing was consistently great from start to finish, by each and every headliner. My hat goes off to the artists – they certainly delivered what they promised. The promoters however have a little more to answer for. Was it meant to be a black themed party? Was it really $80 on the door? When we left the party the place was still packed out, but there was still room to dance. It was just such a shame that nobody did. Oh well, I bet there’ll be some fantastic footage about it on Youtube.