Tired, exhausted, drained, shattered – a heavy working week meant that I was all these things and more and on the verge of not being able to make it to Metro for the Perth leg of Gareth Emery’s ‘Northern Lights’ tour. That would’ve been a mistake…a big mistake!

Despite breaking through the EDM scene in early 2002 with his white label vinyl remix of The Shrink’s Nervous Breakdown, Northern Lights is Emery’s debut artist album. Released on his own label Garuda, it has been arguably the most anticipated debut album in the world of trance in recent years and has been receiving amazing reviews since its release on 23 September last year. From the way Emery was banging out the tracks from Northern Lights, the clubbers would have been storming out the door to buy the album had the stores been open.

The length of the queue outside Metro was unbelievable. I was grateful to be able to bypass the massive crowd to slip inside in time to catch Perth Dance Music Award’s Best Trance DJ winner Jason Creek’s set. Jason is an absolute joy to watch on the decks. He’s big on crowd interaction, his mischievous smile lights up the stage and his passion just oozes out of the speakers.

The dancefloor was packed with clubbers totally into his tunes. I loved his set – especially his cheeky sample of Planet Funk’s Chase the Sun, a classic riff that I’ll never get sick of. Pity the MC and dancers got in the way. I thought they were a total distraction that took the focus away from how good Jason was that night. There’s a simple formula. MCs with dubstep – win! MCs with trance – massive fail!

At 1am, the #7 ranked DJ in the world took over the CDJs. Gareth Emery stepped onto the stage, acknowledged Jason and his audience and took in the moment as cheers, whistles and applause resonated around the room. After a few minutes of soaking up the love, Emery kicked into action and pulled out epic tune after epic tune. His track selection was masterful. Every one of them had a unique hook that commanded the audience’s attention. The club went wild. Highlights for me included the mashup he played of Pendulum’s The Island and of course the vocal anthem of his album Sanctuary.

Emery is without doubt one impressive DJ, and if that talent and dedication to his genre hadn’t shown through in his set, I would’ve slunk home hours ago. How does that old saying go again? Oh yeah, I guess I’ll just sleep when I’m dead.