While last year, I had been fairly disappointed with the weaker lineup and the fact that the organizers couldn't be bother to indicate the time at which each DJ was going to play, nor could you tell who was playing at any given time.
Well this year they addressed both problems, with a great lineup, and announcing beforehand who was going to play (although their website was overengineered with the silly butterfly replacing the mouse cursor). While I missed the first few hours, they had 7 hours of non stop trance, and good trance at that.
Quite frankly, Spundae did a good job organizing the event: I got in in less than 5mn with a prepaid ticket, which is what I expect (in comparison, Monster Massive took over an hour with VIP tickets no less, and walking several miles from your paid parking spot to the mandatory ticket pickup place with a long line to the pretty far VIP entrance with another long line).
Of course, another reason for the lack of stupidly long lines was that they didn't have to search you with more gusto that an DHS FAA employee would at an airport. Spundae did the minimal search they had to do, and let people in quickly. Thankfully the crowd is intelligent enough not to require anything else (compared to LA where they have to worry aobut knifes and guns). Just for that reason, LoveFest in SF wins tenfold over Monster Massive in LA.
And the end result was that the place was packed: the dance floor was pretty full and so were the rows of benches all around the floor. It was definitely a well run event which was successful as a result.
If I had to knit pick, I'd mention that they could have spent a little more effort on the decors (not a single hanging sculpture that could be lit up with lasers and spotlights), and the VJ seemed to think that it was a good thing to leave those top DJs mostly in the dark. WTF, seriously? You could barely see the poor guys and they had a night vision camera to film them and broadcast them on a screen. That was a bit silly, just light them up a bit more, it's not that hard...
But seriously: Spunday SF Lovefest: 1, Go Ventures LA Monster Massive: 0 (they have a decent lineup, but I'm not going to bother this year. If I hear they fixed the strip searches, I might consider it again, let me know by sending me Email).
Anyway, going to the event: This year, we skipped the afternoon march across SF and used the time to rest so as to be bright and awake for the whole party
We got there just before ATB took the decks around 23:00. It had been almost 4 years since I last and first saw him, and he did a great job. He even managed to pull yet another 9PM 'till I come remix I had never heard (and I have a lot of them).
Next, by 00:30, Paavo and Tony from Above and Beyond were back for a very nice set.
And last, but not least, by 02:00 Armin took the crowd and played it until 04:00. It was the 3rd of a great set to finish up the evening.
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All the DJs played a great set which was quite enjoyable, it was definitely a Trance evening not to miss, which also saves me from having to deal with the monster massive crap.
And here are a few videos from the evening
ATB - 9PM 'till I come
Armin - It ain't over 'till it's over
Armin - I can't sleep
Armin - Nice Video of old tapes |
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