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)
It's been almost a year since TFSF8 for which I had built my matrix shirt.
It was time to try my new beta shirt with 6144 pixels instead of 768 pixels per side. That was a lot more work (months of work to get a new driver working and port my code). It's not perfect yet, but it's a good start.
This was last year, Shirt v3:
And this year with my Shirt v4:
If you are curious, this page that shows how I built my EDM Festival and Burning Man LED Pants and Shirt v4 on ESP32 with RGBPanels and SmartMatrix::GFX.
Back to TFSF9, this year was only 2 rooms/DJs compared to the 4 rooms/DJs in TFSF7 and TFSF8 these last 2 years. There is a case to less is more, too many rooms makes it hard to enjoy much of anything, knowing that you're missing 3 other sets at the same time, but maybe 3 rooms would have been better, or at least using one of the indoors rooms instead of the somewhat chilly outside psytrance patio?
Anyway, I was there bright and early with my friend Triode to make sure I could enjoy the entire night, and got a few pictures during setup;
Kim checking out the VIP menu
The 2 stages started going soon after 20:00 and the main room was more enjoyable than last year where it was overrun with smoke and a bit too packed at times:
Then, soon after 23:00, my I went to check out Triode's custom set he had been working on and telling me about during the week. As we jokingly said, I dedicated it as the "zero fucks given" set :) It was fun to see how it went all over and jumped from tune to tune just enough to tease you and then go in another direction. Quite fun and enjoyable:
After Triode, I went back to the main room for Ferry Corsten who went from midnight to 03:00.
In between, I went arond the rooms to mingle with the crowds and catch up with some friends:
Triode and Afik talking shop
And before long, it was 04:00, end of the evening. Thanks all for the great vibes and the music. See you next time!
Quick, very incomplete video summary:
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