Ok, so I like electronic dance music, more specifically Trance. When I started in the 1990's, the US was a bit behind in that department.
Still, with San Francisco and San Jose nearby, I've had some opportunities to see some great EDM/Trance DJs. Back in the early 2000's, they sadly played club music in the US that was nowhere close to the hits they had composed and were known for, but over the years, as Trance started becoming more popular, those DJs finally started playing their good tunes in the US too, and maybe from 2004 on, it's only been getting better. Popsicle Halloween 2004 was really the beginning of great music parties in the San Francisco Area, and thankfully things have gotten even better since then
As a matter of fact, after another 10 years (2015 and beyond) the good news is that Trance has grown quite a following in the US, and places like the SF Bay Area, and while Trance has been declared dead a few times in the last 10 years, it's still going strong here.
Trance Family SF is definitely strong in the area, we've been getting more big trance parties every year, including many top DJs that come visit us what feels like every other week now (as of 2018-2019), and through those events, I made many friends in Trance Family SF. Thanks to you all.
Over those years, I got the chance to meet a few of my favourite DJs, including Armin more than once, and my last hobby has been to work on lights for my shirt and pants (version 3) and (version 4)
So, I'm Seven Lions fan, and figured it would be interesting to see his friends play at Mezzanine, but honestly it was very much a mixed bag, both in music type (a bit all over the place, including the crowds, some were rowdy), and DJ'ing skills.
Seven Lions wasn't technically on the schedule, so we didn't have an expect him to play a lot, but were hoping for at least 1-2H, and in the end, it was only 30mn, which was disappointing.
A few pictures:
Finally, Seven Lions came for a quick tease around 01:00 and went to hide again :) The guys who were playing there (not even sure if they were actually playing), didn't mix anything. It was just a track after another with no transitions whatsoever in between. Sigh...
Finally, he took over the decks at 01:15, for some nice tracks and proper mixing. It was quite nice, but way too short, especially with some of the substandard DJs that played just before:
π
2019-11-23 01:01
in Clubbing, Dreamstate, Festivals
Dreamstate in SF did not happen this year, which is unfortunate as two dreamstates are better than one :) , that being said we still had Dreamstate Socal, which only got better this year. This year was my 3rd Dreamstate Socal, and my only regret was not having started to go earlier.
Dreamstate Socal at the NOS in San Bernandino has a lot more room than Bill Graham in SF, which allows for multiple stages (4 of them 2 years ago, and 3 these last 2 years). To be honest, 3 stages are enough given that each timeslot often had multiple DJs I wanted to go see. The big change this year was the much better psytrance stage, which accompanied with the great DJs, gave lots of opportunities to listen to good psytrance.
So, psytrance, I know, it's a bit of a niche market, but with some DJs like Astrix, Vini Vicci and Blastoyz, I've grown fond: high energy triplets grow on you, especially with so many psy remixes of great tracks. If you want a sample, see Blastoyz at this year's transmission:
Anyway, back to Dreamstate Socal, great production this year, more DJs than you could see and enough eye and ear candy to fill two great nights:
welcome back, we missed you
The decors were great and the VIP areas were shiny:
If you didn't bring your own lighting, they had you covered:
Closest to the entrance was the well improved psytrance stage (the sequence). The visuals were fantastic:
And the vision, the indoor venue, while too small for the crowds, had fantastic lighting and lasers too:
there is no such thing as too many lasers
woot!
but getting in at times, was 'challenging', some likely got in after the set they wanted, was over :-/
The Dream (mainstage) was quite well done too:
of course they also had a few lasers, because why not? :)
For the LED/tech nerd that I am, it was great to see more people with LED panels, some were able to use some of the code that I published online and make their own improvements on top:
well done Rory
nice improved animations on Denny's totem
nicely done, not easy to make a good gif in only 64x64 pixels
and even without LED panels, there were other nice totems:
So, let's go on to the DJs for Day 1:
unfortunately the DJ lighting was busted on day 1 in the sequence, so you couldn't see the DJs
it had been years since I last saw Johan Gielen in 2004, sweet!
I do hate tall flags though, they've ruined so many of my pictures
30X zoom taken from pretty far in the crowd, hence slightly grainy
Haliene came to sing with Ferry, but unfortunately she was not high up and didn't get to sing much. Give her a higher stage to stand on next time
and Aly and Fila to close the night
Day #1 Video Summary:
The next day, we had a meet and greet where many artists were nice enough to come see their fans. Thanks to Rachel for getting me a spare ticket after mine was invalidated:
After a bit of rest before the next big evening, came day #2:
cool outfits
hard to capture persistence of vision on camera, but nice when it works
sweet
psyduck is overlaoded
Then it was time for some tripets, vini vici and blastoyz, and they were both great:
7 lions even came to say hi
I went back to catch the 2nd hour of Above and Beyond, which I had found a bit disappointing the last times I saw them, including ABGT 350. They were however excellent this night:
that was indeed my thought after the gorge and ABGT, but they made us wrong this time, thank you
I finished the night with Abraxis. Seven Lions didn't mix dubstep in like I was hoping for, but it was still an enjoyable set:
still poor lighting on that stage, sorry
and just like that, it was over, after 18 incredible hours
Day #2 Video Summary:
Also, those 2 days was one more chance to complete my DJ and Trance singers picture collection :)
Thanks to my friends who were there to share the evenings with me and Jennifer for joining me:
