Stereosonic once again returned to Claremont Showgrounds on the 27th of November, for yet another instalment of the huge southern hemisphere music festival. Already well known and loved by many of the world’s dance music icons, everyone was expecting a huge lineup for 2011, and huge was definitely what they got. With artists such as Armin van Buuren, Afrojack, Sub Focus, Pnau, Carl Cox, Avicii, LMFAO and many, many more, the 2011 Stereosonic lineup promised to be unforgettable – and unforgettable it certainly was!

I made it into the showgrounds a little before 2pm and managed to find my way to the Outrage stage just in time to catch the end of a banging set by local Perth DJ Jus Haus. Despite Bombs Away fans spoiling the end of his set by chanting their name over his music, Ben mixed and scratched away, undeterred by the chanting, and won them over with the Clockwork remix of Levels by Avicii, right before the Perth-come-Gold Coast duo hit the stage.

Bombs Away were running a little late for their set, and the crowd got a little restless for a while – but that was solved when the guys dropped Looking For Some Girls and Turbulence. The duo then worked their way through hits such as Big Booty Bitches, Swagger and finally Supersoaker and had the crowd moving along the whole time, courtesy of their unique bouncy brand of electro house, with Thomas Hart’s infectious vocals constantly dropped in throughout the set.

Next, we moved through the various stages to check out a few of the acts in the early afternoon. Kaskade had a decent sized crowd on mainstage, Acid Jack was captivating the loyal fans in the Bass Arena, and Arty was involved in non stop sing-a-longs with the crowd in the Kabuki tent. In fact, the atmosphere in the Kabuki tent was simply electric all day long.

Avicii opened his set on the main stage with a new track due out soon called Fuck School which is going to be huge upon it’s release, no doubt. He then worked his way through a collection of progressive house goodness, playing popular tracks such as Fade Into Darkness, Seek Bromance, Alcoholic, Swede Dreams among many others, before dropping that track! Of course, I’m talking about Levels : the crowd erupted into a frenzy singing/humming along to every chord throughout the song. I have to say I was looking forward to Avicii, and his producing is fantastic – however, his DJing is very basic and was definitely a fair way behind a lot of the other artists at Stereosonic. But hey, he still knows how to pull a crowd!

Ferry Corsten always knows how to entertain his loyal fans, and this year was no different, with the Carl Cox tent overflowing with people squeezing in to catch his late afternoon set. We had a quick look before moving on to also quickly check out the Bag Raiders in the Outrage Tent. I have seen these guys on four different occasions now, and as ever, they didn’t fail to disappoint.

Another upside of Bag Raiders is that I managed to keep as far away from the ear bleeding garbage that is LMFAO – although I did catch the end of their last song, which involved a shitload of wiggling and not much clothing. To my pleasure, 90% of the crowd left when LMFAO finished, paving way for me to get a spot one row from the fence for Grey Goose drinking Dutchman Afrojack . I saw his set for Limelite at Metropolis Fremantle back in May or June and loved what he did there, so I made sure I to catch him again here. He played less of a commercial set this time around, and despite a few technical glitches early (one stack of monitors not working, sound cutting out early on, and a faulty CDJ) he played a banging set full of original mixes, as well as a bunch of new Afrojack edits, bootlegs and mashups.

Having seen The Bloody Beetroots twice before, I took a wander to check out Carl Cox only to find out I missed all but the last five minutes of his set. Instead, I caught half an hour of Pretty Lights – and was very impressed! Pretty Lights had the crowd going nuts, and stopped those who initially turned to leave the tent after Carl Cox dead in their tracks. After that, I had a quick look at Caspa and MC Dynamite before grabbing a bite to eat and setting myself up to watch the man, Armin Van Buuren, take the main stage.

Armin went back to his roots for a part of his set, which was greeted by a roar of appreciation from his old-school fans, but for the large part played a set that old and new fans alike could bask in the pure talent that this guy exudes. David Guetta who? Armin made clear just why he is still the number one DJ in the world for the majority of the dance music community.

Stereosonic 2011 can be summarised in one simple sentence: Great artists, great crowds, great promoters and a great day out. It was proof that, once again in 2011, Stereosonic has cemented its place as the best dance music festival in Australia!