The air among Fortitude Valley was thick with anticipation as many lined up outside Family nightclub, for what they hoped would be the set of a lifetime from Dutch trance God Tiësto. As I entered the already full club shortly before 10pm I was greeted by the beautiful vocals of Morgan Page and Lissie from the Deadmau5 remix of their track The Longest Road. An unexpected change of set times saw Baby Gee taking the early set for the night. Following with Pryda’s epic tune Pjanoo would have been the perfect end to set but Gee continued to work the crowd until 10.30pm with banging house and tech including Funkagenda What the Fuck. Gee’s technical skills have always been something I’ve admired and while his set lost a little flow towards the end, he’s always able to keep a crowd entertained with his unique and flawless mixing – proving he’s a true professional, and an asset to the Brisbane scene.
tyDi took over the decks with his intro edit of Martin Roth’s Off the World before moving into a true crowd pleaser of a tune, John O’Callaghan feat. Audrey Big Sky (EDX vocal remix). The scene was painted for what would be a progressive and melodic set and with the dance floor still filling, it was sure to be a hectic night. Unexpectedly hearing what I class as the tune of 2007, Jonas Steur feat. Jennifer Rene Fall to Pieces, had this reviewer and many others reaching for the lasers, but it was the Inpetto remix of Fragma’s Toca Me which blew the roof off Family. I’ve always felt the task of the warmup DJ is to simply warm-up the crowd, but when tyDi closed out his set with Markus Schulz’s emotional screamer Without You Near, the crowd was left a little overheated.
Despite the club looking more like a sardine tin, the atmosphere and crowd were eclectic and mostly well behaved. An almighty roar was heard and it was clear that the man himself, Tiësto, had donned the headphones and opened the CD wallet. A CD wallet which was to be covered by a towel when he wasn’t looking through it for the remainder of the night. As he opened with the track from his Elements of Life promo mix available on inthemix, it was clear he would take a progressive groove for the start of the set. His trademark inconsistent mixing made an appearance as he jumped between genres of music. The visuals on display were of epic proportions, as production manager Matt Smith twiddled knobs and played with keyboards in his little section of the booth. The first hour was up and down, as Tiësto struggled to find coherence and flow. Trance anthem Albert Vorne Formentera What (Gareth Emery remix) launched the crowd into ecstasy, but the mix that followed had many scratching their heads. The enthusiastic crowd however was hard to keep down as the traditional European “Woot Woot” was so loud it could surely be heard from outside Family, and the dance floor never thinned.
Tiësto has gained worldwide recognition from his productions, and when he smashed the crowd with a trio of hits it was clear how important these were to his popularity. The combo of Lethal Industry (Richard Durand remix) into Love Comes Again followed by Traffic left the crowd gasping for breath. The screams of joy and emotion heard during the breakdown of Lethal Industry were deafening. At the halfway mark I was still apprehensive about the progression of the set, and where he would go from then. The uplifting and driving trance tunes, started to show and this is where he really hit his element. The mixes were flowing (most of them anyway) and the progression was close to perfect. Andre Visior Something for Your Mind (Giuseppe Ottaviani remix) was an epic addition to set as well as a remix of Bart Claesan’s emotional First Light. It was disappointing to see the first 2 hours of the set be a little unstructured and incoherent, but the last hour was worth the wait. Closing out his set with his worldwide known remix of Adagio for Strings and Marcel Woods’ anthem Advanced left the majority of the Family crowd very satisfied.
It was a long stint between innings for Australian fans, and most possibly the last time we will see him on our shores. As he tossed his headphones into the crowd and signed off with a smile and wave, it was clear the crowd wanted more. Tiësto came, delivered to the masses and left, and those who were lucky enough to experience the God himself will talk of it for years.
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