Tag Archives: trance

High on Faith and Trance

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Faith is a difficult thing to quantify. How can one compare one’s own faith to that of another person? Perhaps you can tell who has more faith when there is a great disparity. ‘I have more faith than you’ sounds a bit arrogant doesn’t it. Can one have only a little faith? One either believes or one does not, right? And how does one describe the feeling of faith to another person? It’s a little difficult. Like love, one either has felt and knows it or one has not. But then that’s the job of a writer; to connect to the reader by relating to the things they have felt.

I was attending a Sunday service, everyone singing, when I saw the pastor raising a hand in praise as he sang. My first thought was that here is a person who is not afraid to express himself in public, a valuable trait in a pastor. Wow, what must he be feeling right now? Then it struck me that this is just what I do when I’m jumping around and singing my lungs out to a DJ that has just dropped one of my favourite songs at a rave.

Maybe it’s a bit presumptuous to compare electronic dance music to religion but if what he is feeling is love for the music, a feeling of praise that will not be contained; that is channeled up through the arms, opening the body, throwing the head back with eyes closed in rapture; being lost in moment, raising the palms as if to stand witness to greatness and reaching for the stars, then maybe I know a little of what he is feeling. And if that is only a fraction of the feeling coursing through the smallness of his being then he is a lucky man.

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Stereosonic Nov 26 Sydney

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It’s been an age since I’ve written a dance party review (and to be frank it’s been a while between parties) but Stereosonic 2011 marked another fantastic party feather in my cap. Sydney weather has been miserable so it was nice to enter the arena with bright sun shining down, clouds dispersing as the DJs cranked out the tunes. Kaskade warmed us up with his smooth sounds, Avicii and Afrojack keeping up the good beats while the sun really started pouring the heat on. Thankfully it cooled down once the sun went behind the stadium and we were left to enjoy Benny Benassi’s rockin set.

The big screen told us that the arena was full and that they were not allowing people in. The security guards manning the barricades made for a fun game, as PartyD and I got caught outside. Waiting till their heads were turned away we leapt from the bleachers over the barricade. High fives all round. The lockout also had amusing implications for those who had stayed well-hydrated. Amusing for me anyway. Eventually my friend, The Nguyen, couldn’t hold it in any longer and was forced to make his way out to the toilets. He too was able to sneak back in to our congratulations.

Another effect of the lockout was that I was forced to choose between certain DJs. I figured LMFAO looked good, leaving me able to catch an hour of Dash Berlin at the other end of the Olympic Park. Good plan. That is until LMFAO was delayed for 35 minutes. I should have caught their whole act (my friends say it was great) but instead after only 10 minutes I had to dash.

When I finally found the trance arena it was like coming home. A dark room lit by flashes of bright pink, green and blue. Hundreds of trancers facing their god on the stage, worshipping with hands, arms, feet, everything.

And then there was Dash Berlin. I’ve wanted to see this prolific producer for some time and he did not disappoint, cranking out hit after hit.

  • Dash Berlin ft. Jonathan Mendelsohn – Better Half Of Me
  • Dash Berlin – Till The Sky Falls Down
  • Tiesto – Lethal Industry
  • Faithless – Insomnia, We Come One (Acapella) mashup
  • Armin van Buuren – Not Giving Up on Love
  • Dash Berlin with Cerf, Mitiska & Jaren – Man On The Run
  • Dash Berlin ft. Emma Hewitt – Disarm Yourself
  • Above & Beyond ft. Richard Bedford – Sun & Moon
  • ID
  • Dash Berlin ft. Emma Hewitt – Waiting

He had me alternately bouncing, thrashing it to Lethal Industry, hands in the air and singing my throat raw. 40 minutes of pure bliss.

Back at the main arena the lockout had been lifted and I made it in time for Armin’s closing. The antics weren’t over yet though. A wave of surprise flowed out from a guy who’d collapsed. And what is the first thing everyone did? Yes, they crowded in for a look. Some of them had the brilliant idea of waving their arms over their heads in an attempt to attract attention.. How anyone is supposed to take a crowd of arm-waving revellers as anything other than people enjoying the party I have no idea.

I ran off to see if the security guards could be of assistance. They were not. Eventually they pointed me in the right direction but by the time I got there some other good soul had fetched the first aid. I was given the task of a blocker for my first aid quarterback (kind of fun). On our way back to the collapsed fellow the mob had decided to pick him up and get him out of there. As they carried his horizontal body past us the first aid lady had an expression I could only interpret as bemusement. I’m sure she’s seen it all. I only hope the fellow hadn’t collapsed with a neck fracture. Then again the smart money’s on the drugs.

Armin played a driving set but it never reached the heights of an Armin Only performance. And no Dash Berlin. When the encore came I finally spotted my absent friends Little Miss Curious and Gonk. It turns out they’d been jumping some fences during the evening too. Gonk had a terrific splatter of blood running down his shin from his leap into the VIP area.

All in all a fantastic day out in the sun, partying with the beautiful people.

Go day parties.

Trance lives.

Lesson in action: If the system screws you, screw the system.