After doing some mundane operational stuff, we headed out to the awesome WesterUnie for In Trance We Trust. WesterUnie and its sister venue Gashouder are both at the far end of Westerpark, which is at the sleepier northwest end of the city bordering a very large park. Any taxi drop-off is at least a half mile away from the venue, but, thankfully, we came dressed for the cold. WesterUnie itself is in the remains of an old industrial building, that is about the size of the House of Blues in most cities. This lends to a gritty warehouse feel, despite the absolute cleanliness of the place.
When we arrived just after 9pm, the crowd was just starting to trickle in. It was heavily congested with machine smoke, which eerily silhouetted the few bodies inside. Even though the interior briefly seemed sparse, it was well-distributed and kept redistributing as the venue filled up. Within the hour, while we were being treated to a great set by Airwave, the venue continued to accumulate a steady stream of party goers. When Adam Ellis went on at 10pm, the venue seemed mostly full. Adam Ellis dropped an orchestral Out of the Blue that was just killer. As the night went on, the venue got more packed and the tempo got faster and faster. When Will Atkinson went on, everything shifted a bit darker, and the energy picked up even more. Who’s afraid of 138? We’re not sure if the venue finally came to its senses and shut off the heater by this point, but it was simply too late. The dance floor became a sweaty mess of writhing giant bodies as Menno de Jong went on. His set lightened things up a bit, but still kept the tempo moving. This was the prime timeslot, and a breath of fresh air in the swampy heat in the interior. In retrospect, it would have been smarter if we would have gotten off the balcony (something about heat rising), but we really enjoyed the prime view for lights/lasers and people-watching, along with dancing.
When Jordan Suckley took the decks, the balcony became too packed for comfort. It was actually roomier at the front, so we grabbed drinks and headed that way. As we headed down, we reflected on the fact that there were STILL scores of people coming inside, and no one was leaving. It was about to be sardine city in WesterUnie. Suckley hammered the crowd pushing a clean 140bpm, and even dropped the fabulous Tiesto – Suburban Train (Jordan Suckley Remix). His set was awesome enough that we actually waited to get our photo taken with him afterwards, which we never do. He was gracious and patient with his fans, and posed for countless photos. While we were reloading on drinks, being fan-girls/boys, and bonding with our amazing international trance family, Sneijder continued to hammer the crowd with incredible tracks to a happy, diverse dancing crowd.
Then came Indecent Noise. He dropped a remix of Insomnia by Faithless that led us to actually brave the very front of the crowd. We also got hit with another awesome mix of Escape by Dj Kaycee. Despite the fact that this was an incredibly hard and pumping set, we can’t help but think that he has a touch of the nostalgia in his sets. To us, Suckley and Indecent Noise were the peak of the night, just the perfect mix of people, melody, beer buzz, and tempo.
Because we are not robots, and we were still incredibly jet lagged, we left just shortly before the end of his set. As we cooled off in the huge hike to our taxi (Uber was not behaving with our near dead phones), we looked at each other and remarked “Holy shit. That’s just day 1!”
Check out Indecent Noise’s mix from the show here.
Check out the rest of the sets from this incredible night here.
Journalist/blogger since 2009 and music lover since 1980. Bex now travels the world and writes and takes photos of dance events, creates art in various media, sings quietly to her cat in the shower, and occasionally builds something that tends to involve a blowtorch. She can usually be seen hiding behind some sort of camera rig.
