superstar DJ's one day festival fills park with dance anthems

With the summer we're having, it wasn't looking too good for Tiësto's outdoor spectacular at London's Victoria Park; however the weather gods must have a special place for dance music, and gave us a day of fabulous sunshine instead of the usual rain.

No parking nearby meant battling the tube, but we were promised only a 5 minute walk from the station to the venue. Leaving the heat of the underground at Mile End, we were shocked to find 'football match' style policing, with countless police officers on foot and bicycles, in cars and rental vans. It seems that dance music has still not lost its reputation of the 80s and 90s, where red top newspapers 'educated' the masses of the crimes of dancing to repetitive beats.

The journey actually took more like 15 minutes, but the good natured hoards of people making their way to the park didn't seem bothered by this, and were greeted with thumping bass from the park, whetting appetites for the afternoon ahead. Getting into the site was straightforward, with ample signs directing ravers to the correct entrance. As is becoming customary at many events, tickets were available in tiers: 'Standard', 'Gold' and 'VIP'. The more expensive tickets allowing faster entrance and access to areas closer to the stage with less busy bars. Brief bag searches (looking for cans) were carried out, police dogs had a sniff of us, and then we were in.

The site was fairly large, and our worries that on-site food would consist of burger vans were alleviated by a wide selection of respectable festival caterers (German sausages, pies, Mexican, etc). A multitude of bars were available, although were priced higher than most festivals at £3.70 for a can of lager or cider, and £20 for a watermelon containing rum cocktail. Toilets were plentiful, with more ladies available than gents (more festivals should do this) but people still seemed content to queue for near blocks, whilst a 10 second walk would take them to a block a little further away with no queue.

Surrounded by 12 foot high fencing, the site took in a lot of parkland, with the many trees providing shade from the hot afternoon sun. Scattered around were several big-top style tents playing host to clubbing scenesters Don't Stay In, Last.fm, and Mixmag. We only ventured into these areas in the afternoon, where Last.fm and Mixmag were playing disco oriented house to very few people. The Don't Stay In tent was where it was happening, at least in the afternoon. Playing techie fidgety house through an outstanding sound system, the place was busy and bouncing from early. Time for only a quick dance as we had to head over to the main stage to see the main acts.

The main arena was flanked by bars and eateries, and filling up rapidly when we got our favourite position by the sound desk. A capacity of 25,000 people, the arena was large enough to never feel too crowded; and relay speakers were setup, delivering sound to those even right at the back.

Perhaps trying to attract a wider audience to the festival configuration than just his usual 'trancers', Tiësto's support acts were very much at the poppy side of dance culture. Arriving too late for indie grime act Hadouken! we were set up and lubricated in time to see Sneaky Sound System take to the stage and blast through some of their hits including 'UFO', 'I Love It' and even a cover of Eurythmics 'Sweet Dreams'. The antipodeans were lively enough, and the crowd seemed to enjoy them, but they come across rather bland to me; and not helped by our uncertainty as to whether singer, Miss Connie, was actually singling live (but heavily processed) or lip syncing.

Turnaround time between the acts was fairly quick, and no sooner had we done a bar run, Calvin Harris greeted us with his guitar backed housey pop. Full of energy, Harris, bounced about behind his Moog, and worked the crowd into a frenzy with a great set taking in 'You Used To Hold Me', 'Acceptable in the 80s', and forthcoming single 'Ready For The Weekend'. Needless to say, the biggest noise was made for 'The Girls'; and with the crowd singing along, Harris worked the ladies up further by singing that he 'likes them Victoria Park girls'.

Entertainment was also taking place in the crowd during Harris' set; as a game of tag was played out between fence hopping 'standard' ticket holders and the, aptly, orange dressed security teams. With only a few security between the 'gold circle' and the main arena, when backs were turned, and to much cheering, fencer hoppers climbed over and ran into the crowd at the front. The ensuing chases by security provided much fun for all around. Pleasingly, security remained good humoured despite repeated efforts from fence hoppers, and when caught, simply delivered the culprits back to the main arena with a smile.



The crowd now warmed up ready for the main man, another quick changeover on stage removed drums and guitars, and wheeled in their place a large LED fronted mixing desk, complete with at least 4 CD decks and a pair of massive monitor speakers. An Underworld track was playing quietly over the system, and then at 18:40 exactly, the sound was cut, and Tiësto walked on stage to rapturous, worshipping applause and cued up Alex Gopher's 'Handguns' (Dada Life remix).

The sound earlier in the afternoon had been loud, but a little distorted at times, particularly at the high end. The system appeared to have been optimised for Tiësto though, as the sound quality was just fantastic. Outdoor sound can be very hit or miss; but with no wind, the system today was loud, clear, and balanced. The hoover noises from his first track sweeping through the arena with bass rattling the stomach.

With a four hour set ahead, Tiësto took things slowly, moving from slower gentler tracks such as Gui Boratto's 'No Turning Back', to more up-tempo and harder numbers in the later hours. With a potentially impending backlash from the trance purists, the first half of his set contained a spattering of housey numbers and remixes. Having not seen Tiësto before (my raving days were back in the 90's dancing to psytrance and techno in dirty warehouses), I had little presumption of what he would play and wasn't concerned by his set crossing a variety of genres; and it seemed I wasn't alone in this. Perhaps recognising that he was playing to a festival crowd rather than at a dedicated trance all-nighter, Richard Sharkey & Peter Sar's house remix of Kings Of Leon's 'Sex On Fire' went down a storm, with the crowd gleefully singing along, and his later playing of Guy Mearns bootleg of Coldplay's 'The Scientist' resulted in 25,000 pairs of hands in the air, lighters and mobile phones held aloft.

As darkness set in, the show came alive; LED lighting across the whole back and front of the stage, powerful strobes, confetti cannons and pyrotechnics all worked to build the atmosphere into a frenzy of dancing. Even the show-stopping speaker pole climbers, that had to be coaxed down under a barrage of empty and not so empty beer cups, only served to reinvigorate the event as Tiësto was able to play his own 'Elements of Life' right from the start, rather than mixing it in. Unsurprisingly, Tiësto played a large amount of his own music and remixes; from the pounding techno-influenced 'Flight 343', synth stab heavy 'Traffic', and unfortunately, the awful radio-friendly 'Silence'. Never having been one for dance records with vocals, my feet preferred stomping hardest to tracks like Randy Katana's 'The Hype', and the somewhat cheesy yet bouncy, 'Tetris' from Electrixx.

Concerned that we had several hours of public transport ahead of us, we sadly had to leave before the close in order to make our rail connections. We left with a smile though to sounds from our own raving era, as Tiësto dropped Art of Trance's fantastic 'Madagascar'. A great end to a great day.

Tiësto clearly loves his music and he's not scared to include some variety in his set, he doesn't stop smiling, and I reckon we'll be back again next year if he's up for it...

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