Paul Oakenfold At Bluesfest - A Night To Remember *Updated

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Update: Paul Oakenfold just tweeted this amazing video of his tour stop in Ottawa:

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More info at http://PaulOakenfold.com

What a memorable show, absolutely in my top 3 of 2012.

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For those that were there last Thursday knew how special that night was as the young, old, and everyone in between were in the crowd to see the legendary Paul Oakenfold perform. 

A note to the openers: Mister Parker brought a lot of energy into his set with banger after banger while Cole surprised me with a solid electro set that got everyone moving.

Prior to Oakenfold's set at Bluesfest I had the opportunity to listen to two previous sets; one at Surrender Las Vegas via their podcast; the other at the Ministry of Sound Gallery via be-at.tv. At Surrender he played a more commercial set that was enjoyable but wasn't trance based at all; at the Ministry of Sound Paul delivered a powerful set that was heavy on the trance to the full appreciation of the crowd. What we got on Thursday was a mix of both as he almost evenly split his show between a progressive house/electro set and trance.

I thought that it was the trance side of the set that really turned a decent set into an epic one as everyone around me were just dancing and having a great time while the BPMs were raised. Paul Oakenfold shines in the trance genre and I really hope that he stays true to it as so many DJs try to chase fame by changing their sound. Oakenfold started off the trance side of things with one of my all time favourite trance tracks 'Big Sky' by John O'Callaghan which had the crowd singing along. From then on Paul unleashed some relentless and energetic trance while commanding a big stage presence as he frequently made a lot of eye contact and fan acknowledgement with the first few rows. Once 'RessuRection' was dropped it gave us all time to slow down and appreciate the special moment that was created at the Electro Stage which far far away from whatever LMFAO was doing elsewhere.

What really inspired me was the great attitude from the crowd including all of these older ravers present that added to the PLUR atmosphere. Thanks to Paul Oakenfold and everyone that showed up that made that night something special to remember.

Markus Schulz at Stereo - A night I won't soon forget

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​Note: This article was ultimately posted on Markus Schulz Facebook page. It was a real honour. Thanks Markus!

This is hardly an event review because there are almost no words to explain the experience I had at Stereo last Friday night in Montreal when Markus Schulz delivered an EPIC 7+ hour set. I knew coming in that this was a special event simply because it was held at the Stereo Nightclub and when you mix a world class club with the sounds of Markus Schulz you know magic happens. This show was sold out well over a month ago so the anticipation for this event was through the roof well before Markus even stepped off the plane.

Markus Schulz blew my expectations out of the window as he absolutely played his heart out with a relentless set that had a little something for everybody. There were some vocal tracks and uplifting trance beats here and there but the core of his set was heavy with dark progressive trance that electrified the dance floor. When Markus Schulz unleashed his 'Dakota' style that's when he truly connected with the crowd and the dancing reached its highest of highs.

Most of the night was spent in the dark as the light effects were kept at a minimal on purpose. You won't see any flashy lighting effects or huge LED screens at Stereo because what's truly important is the pristine sound quality, the music, and the people on the dance floor.

There were around 10 glow kids in the middle of the dance floor waving around their light gloves and giving everyone a mini light show. Each one of them were showing so much love for Markus for the entire 7 hours.

The rest of the crowd showed their appreciation for Markus by chanting his name numerous times throughout the night. There were a lot of moments during the set that were goosebump worthy.

Can you believe that Markus actually took the time to take pictures and give autographs to his fans after the show? By this time it's already past 11 am and he hasn't sat down in over 7 hours and yet you still see him smiling and being personable to his fans like nothing happened. What a champ.

Afterwards Markus had this to say:

Local Montreal trance duo DJ Offset had this to say about Markus' performance:

I can state without hesitation that was the best live set that I've ever experienced in my life so far. Thanks so much to Stereo and Markus Schulz for a very memorable night and I hope to do it again next year!

Skrillex in Ottawa - WOW!

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This was my view of Skrillex at Ottawa Bluesfest:

And this is my view from Ritual later that night:

It's hard to put into words how much of a good time I had last night as Skrillex put on a mind-blowing show and really gave his all to please the crowd. Skrillex' energy was infectious as it appeared that the entire Bluefest crowd was giving just as much energy and love back to him in a high powered set that surpasses the energy level of most if not all major DJs I've seen. Skrillex is really a maestro out there as he commanded total control of the crowd from his spaceship DJ cockpit reminiscent of an old Star Wars film which later levitated 10-20ft above the stage.

The night was filled with almost everything Skrillex as he played tracks from his Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites and Bangarang albums. He also exhibited flawless mixing without the use of his former Ableton Live/laptop setup from last year. Is he proving to everyone that he isn't just pressing play? Well if he is then he proved it beyond all doubt on Saturday as Skrillex was rocking it out with 2 USB sticks, 2 CDJs, headphones and a mixer. My personal set highlight was when he played his Kill Everybody track and mashed it up with Knife Party's Internet Friends drop that just messed me up in a very good way. What also worked well was the use of all his moombathon tracks such as Make it Bum Dem track collab with Damian "JR. Gong" Marley. If it couldn't get any better Skrillex actually played my all time number one Beastie Boys track Sabotage that had me singing to the top of my lungs.

Unfortunately I decided that I needed to duck out 25 minutes early in order to hightail it over to the Ritual Nightclub so I could be one of the 100 Bluesfest band holders that got free entry into Skrillex' official after party later that night. It was almost physically painful to leave such an electric atmosphere but luckily my gamble paid off as I managed to be one of the last few to get in for free. I had no idea what to expect from the second part of the night; will Skrillex only show up for a few minutes and play a couple tracks or will he give us rabid fans a proper set? Well the answer came around 12:30 am as Skrillex suddenly showed up totally amped up and ready to take over from Koan Sound who played a fun and eclectic set. The difference of seeing Skrillex so far away at the Bluesfest stage to having him perform in such an intimate venue like at Ritual was massive. At Bluesfest you were confronted with an assault of the senses as the whole stage setup took you on visual journey into Skrillex' music; at Ritual I felt like I was treated with a special performance between himself and a few hundred of his friends. Skrillex completely immersed himself in his set that had everyone jumping up and down in excitement. I'm not quite sure how else to explain it because you really needed to be there to understand how great Ritual was that night. I'm a big fan of Skrillex' video tour of South America so when he dropped Dream - This isn't House at Ritual I went nuts.

The next day Skrillex complimented Ottawa and its fans in absolutely one of the best ways possible:

 

Thanks Skrillex and to everyone that came out and made it special.

My Above & Beyond Event Recap

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Soundprank warming up the crowd Ottawa welcomed the 5th ranked in the DJ Mag top 100 poll Above & Beyond (UK) with a completely sold out show last Saturday as the Nation's Capital EDM fans assembled at Barrymore's to enjoy an epic evening.

This is the Above & Beyond (A&B) Tour Bus which was located just besides Barrymore's. You could basically see Tony McGuiness chilling out in the back just before the show. There were a few girls hoping to get into the bus but were turned away by the bodyguard wearing a suit and tie.

The venue was electric when 2 of the 3 Above & Beyond crew took the stage (Paavo was holding the fort in the UK doing their TATW podcast).

The visuals for this tour are simply amazing as we were treated to a cornucopia of geometric figures, jellyfish prancing on the screen, city scenes like New York Timesquare, and an airport scene among others. The one visual that I couldn't get out of my head was the image of skydiver with the beam coming out of his head! A&B had the ability to type a lot of messages to the crowd which was just fantastic and was used many times throughout the night. Of course the one that brought the biggest cheers was the one that said “Best show of the tour thus far”. Thanks guys, we love you too!

 

If you weren't at this show and wanted to get a sense of what the visuals were like I brought together a few Youtube clips where I thought A&B got some of their inspiration from:

 

Bjork's Oceania minus Bjork in diamonds:

 Cubesato's amazing geometric clip:

Massive Attack's Atlas Air visuals from their live tour last year:

A&B played many of their anthems including Sun & Moon, You Got to Go (I believe they played the Kyau & Albert Remix), Thing Called Love and others. The crowd including myself ate it up as we sung every word loud with lots of enthusiasm! I especially loved 'You Got to Go' because it's a very inspirational track for me personally – this is why I love A&B because they are so positive and generally have really uplifting music that can brighten anybody's day. A&B also played some newer tracks from their newly released Anjunabeats vol. 9 collection including Formula Rossa and Mozart by Mat Zo and Arty. The crowd went especially nuts for Mozart which is making me want to book a trip to Toronto to check out Mat Zo along with Gabriel and Dresden at the Guvernment on Feb 11th.

The first hour and a half had a pretty steady tempo of anthems and lesser known tracks but things clearly ramped up in the last half hour of their set when they started playing banger after banger of higher intensity tracks which really tore up the dance floor with massive positive reaction.

Overall it was a really nice set by A&B as I believe it fulfilled most of the expectations from the crowd. When they played their final track of the night the duo were nice enough to thank the crowd by autographing anything from t-shirts to signs to even ticket stubs. Jono Grant even stayed after the lights went up for a solid 15 minutes to continue signing anything and everything (look at the video link below of him signing a shoe lol).

 

 

Above & Beyond are well known to be a really fan friendly DJ trio and tonight proved to be no exception as Ottawa was treated to an amazing night of trance music. Thank you DNA Presents for bringing in one of my favourite DJ acts and hope you guys bring even more trance acts in the future!

My Paul Van Dyk Recap

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Can't believe it's already been 3+ weeks since this event took place! On April 13th Paul Van Dyk (PVD), a true trance legend, took the stage at Barrymore's Music hall and brought Ottawa some banging tunes to get everyone dancing. Paul Van Dyk gave us a night to remember as he performed a very energetic 2 hour set with only a few melodic breaks in between.What I really appreciated about this night was that in the past you would usually have to travel to the Circus Afterhours club in Montreal to hear this kind of sound but since the EDM scene has exploded in 2012 trance fans can be treated to a very special night right here in our city.

Paul Van Dyk played a lot from his latest album 'Evolution' which was more than fine from my perspective because I've been digging his Verano track for well over a month now. Another strong track from the album that's been getting some traction in the EDM world is 'The Ocean (feat. Arty)'  which is a beautifully melodic track mixed in with some dirty trance beats:

This is the Paul Van Dyk that I love and I really respect him for sticking to his roots throughout his career. Speaking of sticking to his roots, here's another track that I feel was one of the reasons I danced my butt off that night: 

Paul Van Dyk feat Ummet Ozcan - Dae Yor

This track alone stands up well to the kind of beats PVD has been delivering his entire career and evocative of what he brought us on that night.

If you're interested in reading more about Paul Van Dyk you can check out a few enlightening articles I've read on him since his gig in Ottawa:

A PVD feature in the Vancouver Sun (April 19th, 2012)

PVD interview on lessthan3.com - Check it out to read what he thinks about Skrillex.

A recent interview posted on Youtube - Fast forward to 5:35 to get to the controversial stuff.

Here's the official recap video from DNA Presents: