With no real support act booked and the finger-scanning virtual bouncers holding up the line as they so cheerfully do, many eager punters were left out in the cold when the clock struck ten and UK dance-rockers Does it Offend You, Yeah? strode onto the Capitol stage complete with synths, vocoders and industrial strength smoke machine to kick-off their headline Australian tour.

The curiousness of the early start time was exceeded only by the curiousness of the new policy of Capitol to ban winter’s finest male fashion institution: the hoodie. Where the empirical evidence of hooded-youngsters causing trouble came from is unknown; but it meant that gangsters and wannabes alike were forced to lose their sense of identity and decide between meekly tying their hoodie around their waist or parting with $2 for coat check. A tough start to the night for the young hoodlum.

DIOYY? were back in Perth for their second show after a rather ordinary set at Parklife v.2008, where their short half hour set was highlighted by an agitated front-man James Rushent starting verbal warfare with a member of the crowd and the notable absence of many of their bigger tracks. The sense of expectation for a set to do justice to the entertaining 2008 album You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into was high.

Expectations were met early with a solid start. With a Heavy Heart (I Regret to Inform You) opened the set, leading into the electro track made for the robot dance, Weird Science. The Cher-inspired vocoder was brought into action on Doomed Now with driving synth causing the first of several well-executed full crowd moshes for the night. Being Bad Feels Pretty Good was another well performed crowd favourite, with Rushent stomping around the stage to the sound of cowbell and bass slaps and the crowd’s energetic bopping sending shakes through the wooden dance floor.

Let’s Make Out was dedicated to the guest vocalist on the recording of the song on the album, Sebastien Grainger of Death From Above 1979 fame, and Rushent’s screeching vocals did him justice. A few new songs were introduced from their upcoming album, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, including Monkeys are Coming and Dead for the Summer, which don’t seem to vary much from the tried and tested dance rock of their debut offering.

A short break after Monkeys are Coming led into the encore of Attack of the 60 Foot Lesbian Octopus, and mangled versions (see below) of Dawn of the Dead and We Are Rockstars before the Reading lads and ladette headed off to have a few drinks at Amplifier.

Despite the positives there were a number of reasons why the show was a bit unfulfilling. Firstly, for what is predominantly a dance act, there were unusually long breaks between songs, meaning that when each song was introduced or unnecessarily dedicated to someone (“Darren Hicks… no, Bill Hicks!”), a lot of the energy and momentum was lost and had to be re-established again. Secondly, although all eyes were drawn to Rushent, it was not because of some commanding stage presence as much as the remainder of the band were, for the most part, obscured by blinding lights and thick smoke making it difficult to engage with the live performance aspect of the band. Finally, the set-list. Epic Last Song was left off, We Are Rockstars was cut in half and what must be their most popular song, Dawn of the Dead, was turned from a ripping dance anthem into a slowed down, shortened, sing-along ballad without the steel drums and beats which add so much to the song on the album.

It’s tempting to answer the question posed by their name with “yes, paying $50 was somewhat offensive”, but that would be too easy and a little unfair. Suffice to say it was a good show, but it could’ve been better.