Last week, after seeing Above & Beyond in Minneapolis, I compared the Electronic Dance scenes in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago. I've always wanted to see how our little corner of the DJ world compared to the major hubs. Tampa isn't a "major" hub by any means, but Miami absolutely is. I figured that other major cities in Florida would have quite a bit of crossover.
I've been to Tampa 4 times now, and all previous times have turned out lame. But the opportunity finally arose this Thanksgiving as Paul Van Dyk was in town!
There was some back and forth as to which Venue he was going to be at. He was originally scheduled to be at The Kennedy but they moved him over to The Ritz in Ybor City a couple months ago. Then 2 weeks ago, they moved him back to The Kennedy. I'm not sure why, but the email said "our original venue has been cleared for PVD, so we're back at The Kennedy."
The Kennedy is pretty fancy. It's setup exactly like one of those Night clubs you'd see in some TV show based in Miami (CSI, Burn Notice). There were lush velvet couches in corned rooms lining the walls, which were roped off for VIPs only. The edges of the walls were lined shimmering lights. The wood throughout the place had a cherry finish with intricate designs like an old armoire. It was a fancy cush little place.
But that what it's biggest problem. It was little. It was about the same size of any bar you've ever been to. Well, maybe just a little bit bigger. The Bar area was placed in the middle of the building and consumed almost all the space. It started at about 40 feet from the DJ booth and continued back from there. The dance floor was not at all wide either.
Justin and I got to The Kennedy around 10:30p. There weren't that many people there, but it was still dense. An opening DJ was playing songs from somewhere, but the DJ booth was vacant. Time went by as we waited for PVD to show up, and more and more people filtered into the place.
By the time Paul Van Dyk showed up at Midnight-ish, I could hardly move. There were nearly 2000 people in this tiny fucking place.
I have no idea why they decided stuffing us into a fancy little lounge bar was a great idea. Rukes has some pictures of what The Ritz looks like here: http://photo.rukes.com/ritzybor/ritzybor.html. That would have been so much nicer.
Justin and I were crammed against the edge of the dance floor. It worked out well since I would only have people knocking into me from 2 sides rather than all sides. We were against a railing which kept us out of the VIP area. When Paul arrived, he actually walked right past us on the way to the bar. He hung out there while mini-Paul setup the decks for him.
20 minutes later he took the stage and pounded our ass with sound. Here's the beginning:
He played some amazing stuff throughout the night, but a lot of familiar titles. Such as "We Are One" (Youtube Clip), "Home" (Cosmic Gate Remix) (Youtube Clip), "Let Go", "For an Angel", and others. The beginning of his set sprinkled some of those in there, but was dosed some Hard Trance...
One of the guys on Trance Addict pieced together a partial set list for the evening. That guy has much better ears than I do..
01. Loco & Jam - Splitting Atoms + [Live Keyboardstrings]
02. Sebastian Krieg & Jerome Isma-Ae - 308 + [Live Keyboardstrings]
03. ID
04. ID
05. ID
06. ID
07. Cosmic Gate ft. Roxanne Emery - A Day That Fades (Inpetto Dub) + [Live Keyboardstrings]
08. Scot Project - F2 (Future Is Now) (Scot's Spring Time Rmx)
09. Filo And Peri - Soul And The Sun
10. ID
11. PvD ft. Johnny McDaid - Home (ID Rmx)
12. ID
13. David Forbes - Breakout (Darker Mix)
14. Giuseppe Ottaviani & John O'Callaghan - Our Dimension
15. PvD ft. Johnny McDaid - We Are One (ID Rmx)
16. ID
17. Alpha 9 - Bliss (Club Mix)
18. PvD ft. Ashley Tomberlin - New York City
19. ID
20. ID
21. ID
22. Filo And Peri - Drops Of Jupiter
23. PvD ft. Johnny McDaid - Let Go (ID Rmx)
24. Judge Jules ft. Headstrong - Could Be Love (Heatbeat Rmx)
25. Daft Punk - Harder, Better Faster, Stronger (Scot Project Rmx)
26. Rustler - Around The World (Abel Ramos Versailles With Love Rmx)
27. Norman Doray & Tristan Garner ft. Errol Reid - Last Forever (Original Dub)
28. Dakota - Johnny The Fox (Barnes & Heatcliff Rmx)
29. Sebastian Ingrosso - Kidsos
30. Madonna ft. Lil Wayne - Revolver (PvD Club Mix)
31. Everything But The Girl - Missing (ID Rmx)
32. The Killers - Human (Ferry Corsten Dub Rmx) + Stoneface & Terminal - Volcano (2am Mix) [PvD Mashup] + [Live Keyboardstrings]
33. PvD ft. Jennifer Brown - We're Alive (Thomas Gold Rmx)
34. Chuckie - Let The Bass Kick
35. Andrew Bennett - Evolution
36. Filo And Peri with Mike Saint Jules - Far From Reach
37. Tom Colontonio - The One (Final Mix) + [Live Keyboardstrings]
38. Sean Tyas & Simon Patterson - For The Most Part + [Live Keyboardstrings]
39. Snow Patrol - If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It (ID Rmx)
40. PvD ft. LO-FI Sugar - Castaway (Jon O'Bir Instrumental Rmx)
41. Karami & Lewis - Vertigo (Scot's Quick Edit)
42. Sander van Doorn - 90
43. Da Hool - Meet Her At The Loveparade (ID Rmx)
44. BT - Flaming June (Gareth Wyn Bootleg) + PvD ft. Wayne Jackson - The Other Side
45. PvD ft. Hemstock & Jennings - Nothing But You (Super8 & Tab Rmx)
46. PvD - For An Angel (PvD vandit Club Mix) + [Live Keyboardstrings]
47. Filo And Peri ft. Eric Lumiere - Shine On
48. PvD ft. Johnny McDaid - We Are One (ID Rmx)
49. PvD ft. Vega 4 - Time Of Our Lives (UK Club Mix)
50. PvD ft. Johnny McDaid - Home
The end of his was nothing but fan service. Absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, Justin and I left early because he kept complaining about how packed the place was. I should've learned my lesson from early in the year to always stay until the end of a PVD set. It's always fan service and wonderful.
But the night was pretty incredible as is. ^_^
Even though we were cramped together like a can of sardines, it wasn't that terrible. There were some pretty cool people who were mindful of space and didn't push people around. There were some that did, but for the most part everyone was there for the music. As evidence by the kids on Trance Addict, there are a lot of devoted fans in Florida that will journey across the state for the music. People weren't there to get shit-faced or noticed, they were there for Paul Van Dyk, and that's really how it should be.
I look forward to the next time some amazing DJ stops by Tampa when I'm there. ^_^