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 Saturday February 12th was the date on which the 12th edition of the famous Trance Energy Party was held. Of course i:Vibes visited this as well, so click in to find out how the night was...
Let me first give you some general info:
Party: Trance Energy 2005
Date: February 12th, 2005
Venue: Jaarbeurs, Utrecht
Line-up:
Mainstage
22:00-23:00 Ronald van Gelderen
23:00-01:00 Judge Jules & Eddie Halliwell
01:00-01:30 Rank 1 (Live)
01:30-02:55 Armin van Buuren
02:55-04:20 Ferry Corsten
04:20-05:45 Johan Gielen
05:45-07:00 Yoji Biomehanika
In Charge Stage
22:00-00:00 M.I.K.E
00:00-00:30 Filterheadz (Live)
00:30-04:00 Marco V
04:00-05:30 John "00" Fleming
05:30-07:00 Igor S
Madhouse Stage
22:00-23:30 Jurgen
23:30-01:00 E-Craig
01:00-03:15 Jean
03:15-04:30 G-Spott
04:30-05:45 Randy Katana
05:45-07:00 Jochen Miller
This report also contains a few video's. You will need the DivX codec to watch them. Use right-click -> save target as to save them. The sound isn't all that; just don't put your speakers at max volume ;-).
Here's a list of the video's in chronological order (the links are in the report itself as well):
M.I.K.E. spinning Perry O'Neil - 'Wave Force'
The Filterheadz spinning an amazing techy track
The Rank 1 Live-Act Opening
Rank 1 playing 'Airwave'
Rank 1 playing Cygnus X - 'Superstring' (Rank 1 Remix)
Marco V. spinning Marco Vs. Bates - 'Bang Bang'
Ferry Corsten playing 'Star Traveller'
The Yoji Biomehanika Opening
Yoji spinning BACED! vs. Ace's Delight - 'Witness'
After travelling for more than 2 hours, two friends and myelf arrived at Utrecht Central Station at about 21:30. We didn't want to miss anything, so we headed straight for the Jaarbeurs. Before going to the party, I read that the venue was only a one minute walk from the station... That must have been a bit of an exaggeration, because it took us a minute or 10 to get there. It seemed like more people wanted to get in early, because there was quite a big queue in front of the doors allready. First we had to put our jackets somewhere. We were left two choices: getting ourselves a coat hanger (which you had to take to the right wardrobe yourself, + there was a huuge line there) for 2 euro's, or renting a locker for 5. Of course we went for the locker system, mainly because that was just loads faster than the hanger thing. After all this, we went through the search (which wasn't that stringent, in my case), which went fine. Okay, our coats were safe, we came through the search in full health, it's time to party!
First we thought about getting some drink coins. As it was rather crowded at the first stands we ran into, we decided to go straight to the Mainstage area and get our tokens there. While walking there, we were handed a nice floorplan so we would't get lost during the rest of the night. My first thoughts about the mainstage were that is was a bit Innercity-like. A huge, more or less 'stretched' hall with 3 bars on each side, a VIP stage and lighting stage near the middle, while there were 2 more wall-like stages at each side, heightened by these kind of large white blocks. The DJ-booth and its surroundings were very nice: the DJ was situated in the middle, with at each side of him two huge walls (also made using white block things) with a lot of video screens in them, projecting visuals all night. The middle of the roof of the hall was made up by a lot of truss, with huge mirror balls hanging in between it, creating some cool beams of light combined with the spots that were there as well:
All the sides of the Mainstage were also surrounded by colorful fluorescent tubes, creating a rather cool effect. Allright, we walked up to the front to get to see Ronald van Gelderen a bit better. He was already hyping up the crowd with trancers like Reflekt feat. Delline Bass - 'Need To Feel Loved', Kyau vs. Albert - 'Made Of Sun' and Ton TB - 'Dream Machine' in the Marco V. remix. It was about 22:20, when at all of a sudden the music stopped, making place for this alarm-like sound. All the video screens started flickering, saying things like 'Overload' etcetera. It was nice to see for the first time, but, as we would later notice, this was done at the start of every new DJ set (which got just a little annoying). Anyway, Ronald van Gelderen was introduced, and he resumed his set with his energetic hit 'Cold Storage', followed up by what seems like the next RvG production. The lighting wasn't at its full potential yet at this time of the night, but as you'll find out in the rest of the report, they had a few nice surprises in mind for us... We found it was time for a beer, so one of us went to the bars and got them, which went nice & smooth. We stayed in the Mainstage until 23:05, and then walked to the In Charge Stage, where M.I.K.E. was spinning. It wasn't that crowded there yet, but M.I.K.E. sure was pumping out some cool tunes: I heard Perry O'Neil - 'Wave Force' (video here), Active Sight - 'Adrenalin' and the awesome 'Till Ya Drop!' by Remy & Roland Klinkenberg. This area was a bit more intimate than the mainstage: the roof was a lot lower, creating a somewhat coasy effect. The DJ stage was located in the middle, surrounded by two big view screens on which some very cool visuals were projected: plugs searching for their sockets, fireballeyes, you name it, they had it! The lighting was cool, though there was a loooot of smoke from time to time, resulting in the crowd not being able to see the DJ for a few moments. One of the coolest things in this area were the huge amount of mirror balls hanging directly behind the DJ. At first they didn't do much, but later on they put a laser on them, resulting in hundreds of green beams injecting themselves into the crowd.
M.I.K.E. started spinning just a lil' more aggressive, serving as the perfect build for what was to come next: the Filterheadz live-act! I really liked their tune 'Yimanya', so I was expecting a lot of it... and they made it true! Drums had been put on stage, so one of the members was able to do some live percussion. The guys started banging out tunes like the just mentioned 'Yimanya', 'Sunshine' and some amazing tribal techno tracks which made me dance my ass off. Check out a video of one of the best tunes they spun here. One rather dubious fact was that, even when the drumsticks were not touching the actual drums, the percussion went on anyway. Oh well, you can't have everything! Main man Marco V. was gearing up in the booth already, and took over the wheels of steel at about 00:30. He started off with some more progressive oriented tunes, but still very danceable stuff. My friends and me wanted to go see Marco V., so we turned our backs on Marco for a while and went to check out the mainstage again. As we noticed half a minute later, it seemed like everyone wanted to go there! Luckily, we were able to wring ourselves through the massive amount of people to a place near one quarter hall away from the DJ booth. Then I saw something I hadn't seen when we first came in: there was a piano on a heightened stage in the middle of the hall, making me wonder what that could be for... Rank 1's DJ Intro started (video here), and as you can see in the video, it took quite a while before something happened. Subtle string sounds were emerging through the speakers, and after a bit of darkness the act finally began. We heard piano notes coming out of the speakers, playing a portion of Mozart's 'Lacrimosa' piece. Benno was playing this live on the aforementioned piano, quite an achievement in front of thousands and thousands of people!
At the moment he finished, he rushed back to the DJ booth to get things really started. An edited live version of the Sensation 2003 Anthem banged through the speakers, creating madness all over the dancefloor. As all their tunes were played live, everything sounded just a little different than usual, in a very cool way. Almost nothing went wrong, apart from a few things perhaps. As the act went on, the lasers were activated: immense green beams started surfacing through the air, fireworks lighted the hall... euphoria! A more trancy edit of their 'After Me' followed soon after, which worked quite well. Two dancers were hanging on some kind of curtain-like thing, whirling around in the air a bit. Quite nice to see, really. The crowd exploded when they played an edit of Airwave (video here). And their last track just finished it off in a perfect way: Cygnus X - 'Superstring' still works like a charm! Check out another vid here.
Rank 1 got a huge applause, and Armin van Buuren took over control. He opened with his remix for the "24" soundtrack, a tune which works very well as an intro. After this he played tunes like Ridgewalkers feat. El - 'Find' in the Kyau vs. Albert Remix, but we though it was time to relax a bit and get something to eat instead. We rushed ourselves to the chill-out room and got some hotdogs (which you could for pay with the same coins as the ones you get your drinks with, so no hassle with 2 different coins). The toilets were free (good!), but rather dirty at some places. We sat down for a while, getting ready for the hours remaining. There was a talent room located in the Chill-out area, with a DJ playing various more 'commercial' tunes like Tiësto - 'Traffic' and Sonic Inc. - 'The Taste Of Summer'. But it was surely nice to listen to! Now that we were in the commercial vibe, we decided to check out the Madhouse stage for a while. DJ Jean was spinning there, scratching like a madman. The DJ Booth was located in the middle of the hall, and had a rather jungly atmosphere to it because of a few palm trees. Dancers were doing their thing on-stage to hype up the crowd a bit, but it didn't really work out for me to be honest. We didn't want to stay there any longer, and went on.
At about 02:15, we decided to go check out Marco V. again, because he was busy doing his own-productions-hour. Visitors were able to put requests in the guestbook on his website, so he was playing a lot of classics! Tunes like 'Simulated', 'GODD', and 'Luvstruck' devastated the dancefloor, and he even played his (and Benjamin's) 'Bang Bang' bootleg check the video here. The crowd went mad (and so did I)!
When the clock hit 03:00, Marco started playing other classics, and we though it would be nice to give Ferry Corsten a visit on Mainstage. I was kind of tired at the time, but that didn't keep me from floating around on Ferry's trance... He played a lot of his own tunes, including the cool new 'I Love You' track. His remixes for 'Syneasthesia', BT and 'Barbers Adagio' came by too, as well as his own tracks 'Star Traveller' (I never knew how good this one was pitched up, check the vid of it here, 'It's Time' and a special edit of 'Rock Your Body, Rock'.
We stayed till the end of Ferry's set, and then went back to sit down a bit more and do a final rest for the last two acts of the night: Johan Gielen and Yoji Biomehanika. We went back in halfway Gielen's set, and he was playing a rather odd mixture of tunes: I heard a strange bootleg of Delerium's 'Silence', and he even mixed a rather hardtrancy tune with Whiteroom - 'Someday' in the EnMass remix. Some classic banging Warp Brothers tune was played as well, but it didn't really make sense to me why to be honest. All in all a set which wasn't that good.
At 05:45 it was time for the most banging Japanese of all: Yoji Biomehanika. We took 2 more Red Bulls and got ready for 1,5 hours of ultra-hard tunes! Check out Yoji's opening here. He started off with an opera sounding track with an immense load of bass coming with it. Everyone started yelling, screaming, clapping and going wild, amazing to see. Other tunes he played were his own 'Monochroma' and 'Samurai', but for me the highlight of his set was the MASSIVE tune called BACED! vs. Ace's Delight 'Witness', which I've reviewed a while ago on i:Vibes. The hard as nails percussion, magnificent opera-break and one of the best climaxes ever definitely made me go absolutely nuts in there. Do check out the video, and please don't mind me going insane at the end ;-).
Yoji definitely knows how to play with the public as well: he regularly just walked in front of the booth, making cool moves, and even doing an airguitar solo during a track with some hard guitar samples in it. It was wonderful to see how well it worked.
As the clock was nearing 07:00, the party was coming to an end. Or wasn't it? The MC thanked us for visiting, but then asked if we wanted one more track... And of course we wanted that. A very hard remix of Mauro Picotto - 'Komodo' started blasting itself through the speakers, followed by an even harder remix of Faithless - 'Insomnia'. Yoji eventually pitched this up until it reached 170 BPM (!!), ensuring the crowd to go mental one last time.
One more track was played (he just couldn't stop), and ultimately the lights went on and the music stopped at 07:15. I put out my earplugs, and heard thousands of feet stampeding on the plastic mess on the floor...
All in all, this was an amazing party. It had one of the best line-ups you could ever imagine, the vibe was right, the music was almost perfect, the toilets were free, etcetera, etcetera.
A few things that did annoy me a bit were the one-way traffic (you had to go all the way back to the entrance if you wanted to go from the Mainstage to one of the other stages), and the heat at the In Charge Stage.
But that doesn't weigh up to the pro's at all, so concluding I give this party an 8!.
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