Warning: mini-rant coming up.
Last weekend I saw Marco V, MIKE Push, and Johan Gielen perform at a local club as part of an event billed "Beyond Time". Maaan was I excited. It's been a while since I been out and I was looking forward to a night filled with these guys who have made some incredible trance tracks over the years. Marco V was to play a "Producer set", MIKE was to play a "Past Present Future set", and Johan was going to play a "Classics set". What more could you ask for?
Marco V was first up and he starts off with Marcel Wood's Advanced. But... it's some sort of remix. And the next song was a remix of a classic as well. At some point he played Luvstruck and it was the original so I got back into the groove but the track after that was pure electro-house. And the next few that followed were the same and I did not understand why everyone around me was bouncing around. Finally, I hear the tell-tale sign of Godd incoming and I get ready for this monster track but something is weird. Godd is 140 BPM but since it came right after all this electro-house it must have been playing no quicker than 132. Ughhh this pissed me off. The track I wanted to hear the most was ruined (for me) because it was so slow! I have chair raved to that track many times so it felt really, really wrong to hear it play so slowly.
TL;DR Marco V makes and plays house nowadays. I expected trance and I was greatly disappointed. I am not blaming him because he is doing what he wants and other DJs have moved on as well. I just didn't do my research and was caught off guard.
MIKE went on after and actually played a good set with lots of classics. Some of his set was a bit cheesy but overall it was good. This surprised me a bit because I do not really like his radio show, Club Elite Sessions.
Last was Johan and he had the most entertaining set of the trio. For starters he is quite hilarious to watch because he moves around quite a bit behind the decks and sings along when there are lyrics and plays the air piano. He played some really old classics as well (e.g. PvD - For an Angel, Ayla, Greece 2000 - 3 Drives) which was just a bit "lame" but he had some interesting remixes. Not really a trance set but very bumping and fun.
Someone made a video of the event:
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