Review: Mr.Pit, Armin van Buuren, Ben Gold

Posted by Cube on May 31, 2011 in Event Reviews | 2 comments

It has been a while since I’ve done such a crazy week. Actually, let me rephrase, I don’t think I’ve ever done such a musically filled weekend ever. So let’s not waste any time and start this massive review.

 

MR. PIT

On Friday night (i.e. Saturday morning) I left the club from a night of ear bleeding HipHop straight to Circus for none other then MR PIT. For those who have never hear of him, I can guarantee that you’ve heard of his songs before. The great Markus Schulz loves playing many of his tracks and that is actually how I got to know him. Pit creates beautiful baselines that give the feeling of hard yet smooth trance. Deep enough to get you going but not overpowering in the least bit keeping the song balanced. Being mainly a producer, he’s DJ skills we’re good and consistent although I’ve seen better. His tunes are pretty catchy but hard to remember for some reason as I’ve yet to be able to hum along to any of his productions without listening to the song (it is a good thing). It basically means that his tracks will always feel pretty fresh and not overplayed. Overall, it was a good night. On a side note, Funktion One speakers blew my mind away. Hands down the best sound system I’ve ever hear in a club environment. So loud yet so detailed, it is truly a masterpiece.

Unfortunatly, no pictures or videos from Mr. Pit

 

ARMIN VAN BUUREN

Never would I thought in my life I would hear Armin Van Buuren play in the sun during the day. WOW – What can I say? Beer, Bikinis, Sun, Bikinis, Trance, Bikinis and… did I mention Bikinis? To be honest, I didn’t really go for the music. I went just to relax with my friends and enjoy some good drinks while getting much needed vitamin D. Beach Club may sound like a pretty cool place but in reality it is quite a shit hole in my opinion. The whole place is set in an artificial lake with a crappy dance floor and the worst speakers ever. I can barely hear the highs on those things and all the bass just goes “Whomp Whomp Whomp” killing my ears. I will however congratulate Production Playgrounds for installing a stage and not repeating the same mistake as they did with Tiesto last year. Either way, let’s get to the music.

 

4:00 to 5:45 – Superb set. Beautiful track selection and wonderful vibe, dancing in the sun is truly a different experience as you see everything that is going on. No distracting lightshows, just pure musical celebration and some alcohol to keep things relaxed and happy. Part of the reason why it was so superb was apparently because he played the exact same 3 tracks in the exact same order from BEB17th Ben Gold set. Although I can’t confirm this, I’ve hear the same thing from 2 different friends so I must say it sounds pretty legit and true. Coincidence? I sure hope so because it would definitely suck to see one of my top DJ’s be known as a copycat… (By the way, Apollo Road was played! YAY!)

 

5:45 to 6:45 – Good set. Once he got the tech trance out of his way, the vocals came up. And by god they were vocals after vocals after vocals. Don’t get me wrong, I love Vocals. But when u play the “ok” ones and follow it by another “ok” one, it gets really mellow and blah. Vocals in my opinions should always be used as a drop and then a buildup. Unfortunately, he didn’t and the energy just didn’t feel the same compared to the beginning. However I must give props to Armin for playing “Remember Love” in tribute to the 21 trance fans whom lost their lives at Loveparade.

 

7:00 to 7:30 – Everything went down the drain. Bad music selection, bad connections and not even Coldplay’s “The Scientist” could save it. The other thing is that it was one cheesy ending. He closed his set, went off stage and the giant screens ask: “Do you want more”. What the… seriously? Feels like something Tiesto would do, not Armin. Either way, he came back out and played “In and out of Love” by far the most overplayed track ever. Of all the songs he chose, I can’t believe he chose that one. Then again, I must tell myself to remember something. It is @ Beach Club, it is commercial and it is of course filled with Douchebags / fake boobs. In that sense, yes – Good ending.

 

Here’s some pictures from Armin’s set:

And some videos:

Unlike BEB17th, our good friend CUBE was with me for all 3 events and since I’ve already written a review on Mr. Platinum already, I’ll let him write the next part.

TangTang

 

BEN GOLD

First off, let me start by ANOTHER apology. I’ve been lazy again, and this is why this review has taken forever to come out. If Tang had not started it, I would probably still be thinking about writing it… sometime. Sorry again.

I use to say that everything Sean Tyas touches turns to gold. I still believe that. However, Ben Gold is… Gold itself, no need for master Tyas to perfect it.

The venue was RedLite. Out of the three afterhours in Montreal, it’s the crappiest. I haven’t been there in a VERY long time and I must say that I was agreeably surprised. I’m not sure, but I think the trance room was renovated. I don’t know how recent this is but they added a round lightning structure in the middle that would turn and go up/down throughout the whole night. There were also small LCD screens that would show either freaky colors, either the live camera filming Ben Gold and/or the crowd. The room was pretty dark besides that, but to be honest I like that feeling, too many lights can be agressing.

The vibe-breaking hip hop room was still there, but that was to be expected. It just sucked that every time we wanted to go for a smoke, we had to pass next to it… Oh well.

The music. It’s seriously time that they invent an adjective stronger than amazing, unreal, crazy, euphoric and eargasmic… all put together. I found it a little agressing in the beginning, but it only took a few minutes for me to get into his fast pumping tech trance beats. It was good to the point that I now finally have a complete top 3 of Trance DJ’s (Sean Tyas, Ferry Corsten being the other two). Most memorable moments were probably Reverie (Dash Berlin’s Remix), Vanilla (Ben Gold’s Remix), Ferry Corsten’s ‘Beautiful’, ‘Feel it’… and I’m pretty sure he played Markus Schulz’s Sleepwalkers as well. Those are the ones that I remember from that hectic night.

I say hectic because it was supposed to be this chill 3-hour set that “we would go check out after a tiring day at the Beach Club”. Ben Gold turned out to be quite the revelation however, playing an extra hour, until 7am instead of 6. The main reason for the extension was… the crowd.

One of the most important qualities in being a DJ is the ability to interact with the crowd. Ben Gold WAS the crowd. He danced and sweat as much as everybody else in that room. When he looks at the crowd, he eyeballs everyone. He does not do panoramic views. It was probably the strongest connection that I ever felt with a DJ (Yes I admit.. stronger than Sean Tyas). To confirm that I’m not crazy, my 3 friends that I went with told me they felt the exact same thing. I have never danced so hard in a 4-hour lapse, and my feet are still a little sore more than a week later.

The crowd was surprisingly better than what I remembered. Maybe because the douche-baggy regulars were too tired from Beach Club and didn’t attend that night? It was obviously far from the friendly environment at Stereo (and recently, more and more at Circus). The crowd’s response to the DJ was really, really good. I mean… why would he extend his set by an hour if it’s not for the crowd?

Everytime I would look up to him, I would see a happy man. I expected a good night but I got AMAZIN. Ben Gold is the living proof that when you love what you do, you’re really good at it. Thank You Ben !

Now here are some videos from Ben Gold’s set… and I’d like to thank aapianist for the videos !

 

Coming up? A very hectic month of June with names such as John Digweed, Joris Voorn, Leon Bolier, Sean Tyas, Simon Patterson, Arnej, Manuel de la Mare and Sander van Doorn. Until then, I promise I’ll be posting some more tracks… it’s been a while Cheers !