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? :)

Lots of VJ equipment to run all of this:

and great view from the VJ booth

It was great to run into friends as usual, some I not met in person yet (only online). Bryan Kyes does a very nice radio show, Emergency Medical Trance, check it out. I recommend EMT 10, one of my favourites for its nice sample of psy in the 3rd hour

thanks for the music Bryan

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:

'till next time: