Live Review: Ministry Of Sound Classical

Today is a celebration of Ministry Of Sound’s 30-year anniversary. It’s the world’s most renowned club brand that’s brought people together with the best of house music compilations and for many unforgettable events across the world to create three decades of dance floor memories.

Mark Pellegrini, Pete McNamara, Sunshine, Dirty South, Goodwill and John Course entertain the crowd throughout the day mixing up some of the best dance tracks to get the party started underneath the big top.

Touch Sensitive changes it up between a few DJ sets with his incredible one-man band, alternating from keyboards to bass guitar with the funkiest synth-laden instrumentals possible. He begins with his First Slice – Intro and follows with groovy beats to unravel ever so smoothly with a nostalgic, yet modern mix of funk, disco, and electronica with a cool ‘80’s-aesthetic – complete with a retro Magnum PI moustache. He serves up a delectable remix of G Flip’s Queen, plus some of his best original work including Same Girl and Pizza Guy. He glides through with plenty of confident basslines, syncopated synthesizers and irresistibly catchy handclap moments for the whole audience to join in for a continuous dance party.

The moment we’ve all been waiting for arrives as the Ministry Of Sound Orchestra takes their place behind their instruments including a massive string section – even including a harp. Visuals on the screen state, “In every house, you understand, there is a keeper, and, in this house, the keeper is the DJ. And the DJ is called Groove Terminator.” 

Groove Terminator takes his place at the top of the stage and controls the pace of the set along with the orchestra conductor. Ministry Of Sound describes house music as a feeling that no one understands really unless you’re deep into the vibe of house. Tonight, we all come together under the one house to really feel the music and celebrate it on a whole new level, experiencing club anthems like never before, reimagined by an orchestra.

In addition to the live orchestra, they are joined by live vocalists including Zoe Badwi and Karina Chavez, Reigan and Andrew Desilva. The band strikes up and they take us on a journey of 30 years of dance music to experience club anthems like never before. The spectacular brand new show with a massive light and lasers display takes dance music to a whole new level and into another dimension.

Groove Terminator tells us that the show setlist is based on the DJ set he would’ve done at OneLove’s band room once upon a time. It features the most loved tracks from the biggest decades of dance music right through today, with all the classics including Children by Robert Miles, Trentemoller’s remix of Royksopp’s What Else Is There? and Robin S’ Show Me Love plus a few more modern pop dance tunes including Rufus’ You Were Right and Fisher’s Losing It.

After an unexpected 25-minute intermission halfway through their set which is a bit of a buzz-kill, the orchestra returns by taking the lead with a few instrumental re-imagined tracks which they give new life and really elevate them with their powerful instruments. They return to a few more classics for the final few songs, with the vocal features. Groove Terminator calls Fatboy Slim’s Right Here, Right Now one of the greatest and it’s played in all its glory before us. This quite possibly could’ve been the best closer for the set but interestingly they choose to end with The Killer’s Mr Brightside, which isn’t really a classic Ministry Of Sound anthem, however the crowd still loves it and lets loose one more time.