GTR and Pulser are two of the rising stars of the international trance scene, so when news came out of their pending Australian tour the chance to see them was too good to miss. After hearing the duo play back to back on FBi radio earlier on in the night the mood was already set for a big one before we even arrived at the club. Gas was the venue for this one, as has been the recent trend with trance internationals, and the crew put on yet another memorable night for all in attendance.
We arrived at the club just before midnight and the place was already filling up quite nicely. The music early on wasn’t doing much for me so I took the time to meet and greet familiar faces and knock back a few beers, then sat back and watched as the dance floor steadily began to pack out. Despite the music being a bit hard for my liking, and somewhat inappropriate as a warmup set for two djs who are renowned for playing a more melodic and uplifting style of trance, the majority of the crowd certainly didn’t seem to mind and the atmosphere was being built up nicely.
GTR finally emerged from behind the decks at 1:30 to an excited reaction from the crowd who were eager to hear what the 23 year old dj/producer had in stall for them. It didn’t take him long to get the crowd going, opening with some nice melodic tunes and gradually building up from there. GTR aka Gareth Emery has had somewhat of a meteoric rise in the trance scene in the past 12 months since the release of his massive hit ‘Mistral’ towards the end of last year, opening the door to him for sets in some of Europe’s most famous clubs and festivals. The set may not have been the best technically, but his mixing was solid enough and the tunes he was dishing out had even the most avid of trainspotters scratching their heads. I did manage to pick out a couple of the more familiar big tunes such as Solid Globe – ‘North Pole’, Matti Laamanen – ‘Flakes’ and M.I.K.E’s classic ‘sunrise at palamos,’ which all went down a treat! But of course the set wouldn’t have been complete without hearing what we were all waiting for, and the first few recognisable bars of Mistral rang through the club the place went nuts! For some reason tracks always sound so much better when they are dropped by their producer, and this was one of those occasions as despite having been fed up with this track for quite some time it sounded absolutely brilliant!
Pulser took over the reigns at 3 and he certainly had quite an act to follow. He picked things up right from where GTR left off and never looked back, dropping quality tune after quality tune; this was melodic, uplifting trance at its euphoric best. Tracks like Insigma – ‘Avalon,’ Morph – ‘Creatures,’ Motorcycle – ‘As the rush comes’ (Armin remix), and Darren Tate vs Jonno Grant – ‘Nocturnal Creatures’ ensured hands in the air action for the majority of the set. It is always great to look around the dancefloor and be surrounded by smiling faces, and this was the sort of music that produces that kind of atmosphere. The highlights of the set for me were definitely Pulser’s own ‘My religion,’ without question one of the biggest tracks of 2003, and his new remix of Firewall – ‘Sincere.’ When I heard he was planning to remix this track I was a bit unsure about it I couldn’t see how he would be able to improve on it, but it sounded incredible! He has turned an absolutely massive track into a true work of art. There can be no doubting that Pulser is ‘so hot right now’ and this remix, as well as his entire set in general, showed why is rapidly becoming one of trance’s newest ‘superstar’ djs.
Gas have been showing a lot of support for melodic, uplifting trance lately and it is great to see after the genre had been neglected in Sydney for quite some time. Big thanks to the Progress crew for bringing these two guys out, and hopefully there will be more big name trance djs to grace our shores in the not too distant future!