Marc's Public Blog

some paths were still under water

lots of PG&E trucks and even boat to try and maintain the lines

strangely the bay level was low at that time

Would have been fun to complete a loop but the PG&E access paths were not open to the public

representing Trancefamly SF as always :)

After having good fun at beyond wonderland socal last year, I went back this year and it was definitely fun again. This time, we stayed in Ontario since it was a lot cheaper and taking the shuttle wasn't so bad (even if friday LA traffic sucks). All in all, staying in Ontario was not a bad choice given the limited ok hotels in San Bernardino.

shuttles were well organized overall

Show starts early-ish at 17:00, due to 02:00 curfew, lots of sun :)

Festival Grounds

Great to see sunset:

and of course, looks great at night, and fun to play with the decors:

People

And other fun things :)

People still did a great job bringing their own costumes:

it was cold, not sure how people came wearing almost nothing :)

some tried harder than others :)

Fun pictures with friends:

Day #1

Actually we did have Audien on the first day, nice set with tight mixes:

Also Tiesto happened, it was actually an ok set.

Then left a few minutes early to make it to the shuttle line back before it got too long:

Video of Day #1:

Day #2

Checking out mainstage before the crowds got there:

And on Dreamstate Day, we of course had a Trancefamily Meetup:

Waiting for the night, as always :)

kids, don't forget :)

Great to get a few more pictures with favorite DJs :)

even Ulrich :)

And just like that, it was 02:00 again, and time to go home (or back to the shuttle):

Thanks to insomniac for organizing all of this and all the people who participated with costumes and good vibes.

Video of Day #2:

Should you go? Would I go Back?

Sunday: Kirkwood

roads were already nice and white on the way up

Carson Spur was quite loaded

Impressive wall of snow

thankful to have underground parking for the duration of my trip

another impressive wall of snow

glad to be back on the lift

I arrived by noon on sunday, new snow was starting to cover the frozen crust underneath:

lots of snow, the top of cornice had some almost invisible real cornices like that, I fell down from that one

met Johannes for a few runs

school run was a rounding error

it was still a bit too warm and wet

by the end of the day, things looked good though :)

When I got to my condo, I was reminded that it had snowed a bit recenty:

Monday: Kirkwood

Kirkwood has a real problem with electric charging, this is the only charger left on the entire property

nice powder

notice the huge pile of storage snow by the parking lots

got one of the first few chairs up the wall. Wee!

interestingly, the top of the chutes by the wall were bare due to wind blowing the snow away

this is the one time I had to unbind that day :)

Palisades was good too

Another picture of the storage snow pile in the parking lot

Cornice run, a bit rough at the top, but opened up to be good lower down:

Straight down run from the wall, a bit firm at the top too, but good after that:

Wall tree run:

The backside just opened, so I went to check it out:

pretty big cornice by the wave

it was a bit of a jump into snow that wasn't exactly a pillow underneath :)

I got down, but it was a bit scary :)

snow as wind packed at the top, deeper lower down

Tuesday: Kirkwood

the wall had so much snow that they gated you to come down before the chairs, the regular ramp that went under, didn't fit anymore

weather and visibility improved during the day, so much snow

I literally managed to snowboard all the way back to the building parking lot across the street :)

Great pow ride off the wall:

More pow during the day, free refills:

Even face shots (1:16):

Wednesday: Heavenyly Side Country

Gondola line

got to the gate for the first run

We went back for 6 firebreak runs total:

After 6 runs, we had enough time to go back the Gondola one more time, up sky, and towards the backside:

The backside snow wasn't perfect, but it was still a good run down, especialy at the top:

Eventually got down the good parts and took a rest :)

before doing the rest of the run down, where snow became more scarce (it's melting quickly at lower altitude):

eventually we got to below the snow line and had to walk a bit

then there was a bit of snow left to finish up

and we got to the road

way too much to drive back

thankfully we got luck with hitch hiking

25mn later, back at the gondola base, end of a great day

Thanks much to Ovidiu and Rik for joining me and the 7 powder runs

Video Summary:

Thanks to Oleksandr and Reznor for opening:

Quick video summary:

SUCCESS!

That only took about 6H, why it it dark outside? Oh, it's past midnight. What was I doing before that?

ASOT 1000, finally! It had to be postponed a few times due to covid, I had to rebook hotel rooms and trips, but it finally happened!

I had never been to a State of Trance in Holland, mostly because:

But eh, 20 years of ASOT, with a 2 year delay due to covid, and the fact that they added a 2nd day, made it worth it enough to go.

In real life, this year was more worth the trip with a (small private) party on wednesday at the Armada studio, a boat party on thursday, a pre-party in Utrecht that inexplicably ended at 01:00 due to some venue curfew (on a friday night?), and then the main event on saturday night 22:00 to 06:00

Day 1: Pre-party, the night of real Trance

and VIP was an even longer walk, but signage was good

finally getting in

first day was simple :)

Due to the long walk and some delays getting in, we missed a little bit of Ruben's set, but got most of it. It was great trance as always:

After 1h, Armin took over for the best 6H classics trance set I've heard from him in more years than I can count. It was pure joy for trance lovers, although it probably also was a farewell set, the last of its kind from Armin:

we stayed front row as long as we could (the crowds got a bit out of hand after a while)

After a while, we went higher up in the side VIP stands, not the best view, but more peaceful:

Reflexion, aka mainstage, was big but the visuals were ok without being great

nice to run into friends :)

There was one other room with other good sets, but it was hard to walk away from Armin's trance set:

had to see some of FactorB

And back to mainstage to see the rest of Armin's set:

as expected, not a lot of people dressed up outside of ourselves, that's how EU festivals usually are

but we did our best to bring smiles :)

a few others, did too

the night ended with Susanna

And by 01:00, it was over. Armin actually said on the mike that they were required to stop that early. A 01:00 curfew on a major venue on a friday night? Or some other labor restriction? Hard to say, but indeed for what this could have been a full on 2 day festival, it was a bit weird. Still, let's no complain, we did have 7 hours of beautiful trance.

Day #1 Video Summary:

Day 2: A State of Techno?

Mainstage (reflexion) on day #2 turned to "a state of techno" soon after Ruben De Ronde was done playing great trance as always. Eh, it was ASOT, no one said what the 'T' stood for :)
I'm definitely more into Trance than Techno, but it's true that there is more and more overlap between the 2 genres recently, and even the radio show said they'd feature more techno, so I guess the future is now. I didn't think it was bad, I guess a bit of variety doesn't hurt and I have to keep an open mind. Also, not everyone is blessed to be a die hard trance lover, so I guess it's ok to appeal to other crowds, especially for a big event.
I do need to state that day #1 (friday) was a joyous night of Trance. Ruben delivered as always and Armin played the most beautiful classic trance set I've heard him play in more years than I can remember (which was of course the plan), so I wasn't bothered that he played a lot of more techno-ish things on saturday. To me, it's pretty clear that Armin wants to evolve beyond just trance, and he knows that he if wants to remain somewhere at the top of the DJ100 chart, he has to play more mainstage stuff and more genres, even if his original fans might not love some of it. I can't say I can blame him for that, it is what is is.

So for Day 2, arrived early in the main room to secure a good viewing spot:

it got filled quickly

Ruben opened the night, and arguably got the best spot since he had no one playing at the same time. Lovely set again:

After Ruben's set was over, was time to go check out other stages, some were somewhat of a walk away:

nice to run into friends

Went to check out other stages:

would have loved to see Xiaro Pitch, but conflicts made that not possible

would also have liked to see all these sets, only saw 2

wasn't able to see any of these

the stages sometimes a bit confusing to find, but signage helped

oh yeah, merch

Back to mainstage, a state of techno:

found one person with an LED outfit, mine was supposed to say because I'm not hipster enough for techno

After Armin's mostly techno on mainstage, went to see Craig Connelly's lovely trance set at cube:

we even ran into Chris again

Unexpectedly, sphere shown full for a while when we tried to go see Armin play there, but thankfully it re-opened after a short while:

unexpectedly ran into my friend Aryel for ust a few seconds before she disappeared again :)

After a bit of Armin's 2nd set, back to mainstage to see the end of Ferry Corsten, and then Vini Vici:

After it became way too much techno, we went to finish the night at sphere with Bryan Kearney:

and just like that, 06:00 happened and the night was over, time to run to the airport to get our flight back to SFO

Day #2 Video Summary:

Day 2: Secret Room

what a surprise to run into this

Armin likely hadn't played in such a small room in a while :)

General Thoughts

I'm not trying to be a strickler, but I tink it's important to have reasonable rules on paper and the 3 above do not match reality. All that said, in real life, the security was actually very reasonable and cared about people having a good time, so thank you for that.

A bit of local humor:

we forgot to come back at the end to see if there was anything in the bin :)

General thoughts about venue:

Conclusions

Would I go back? As per the current format, probably not: for me, festivals should really be at least 2x9h or 2x12h with pre-parties 1 or 2 days before (making it worth a 3 or 4 day trip for non locals, akin to ADE). If ASOT becomes a solid 2x9H or better 2x12H festival where the sets are more spread out across fewer rooms with fewer conflicts, then it would become more interesting to non locals and be worth the trip more. That said, it was 1000, even if 2 years late, and I'm very happy I went and go to see it at least once.

Very glad to have been there, and somehow managed to meet all my friends in the same place at the same time right at the end :)

Should you go? Would I go Back?

easy train ride from Amsterdam

Found ravers on the train :)

Cool architecture

Hotel Grand Karel was nice, although pricey :)

Downtownn had the cathedral and dom tower which sadly is being renovated, so it didn't look good:

There was just enough time to get a climbing tour that day, but only half way up:

partial view with bars I tried to delete in software

Had time for one museum, Catharijneconvent:

And it's fun to go through town and see random things:

The train station gets nice at night:

nice sunset

Of course, the main reason for being there was ASOT 1000

Anyway, it sure still was good fun, we had:

There is a view from the boat, but it was quite cold outside, and you couldn't really see it from inside the boat:

Thankfully inside it was warm and Kev Blundy started the night for us:

making new kandi friends

Kyau & Albert was next:

great to see Ludkina again

Radion6 was next:

The night ended with Daniel Kandi b2b Nitrous Oxide:

haha, win!

Eventually we got back to amsterdam and the party was over (no sound allowed there at night). We definitely had a good time.

video Summary:

found a few other ASOT fans on the way

a pretend 'learn to mix'

It was an interesting expo, even if a bit brief (limited to 45mn plus the show). Video summary:

glad to be back

Let's not get into how when I unpacked my luggage after landing, I found out I had forgotten my LED pants and shirt at home (doh!!!), but thankfully had enough spare parts to build makeshift ones in the uber on the way to Armada. It was literally safety pins and duct tape, but it did the job :)

Luke Bond

Ruben de Ronde

Reorder

Marteen de Jong

Video Summary:

After 5 hours, the lovely night was over:

very cool decors!

Full set on youtube: