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Review of Tiësto In Concert in a Dutch Newspaper
I thought this would be interesting for other people to read how Dutch papers (finally!) write about dance music and the whole scene 
Eight hours long from climax to climax
Saturday DJ Tiësto must have seen himself as a true rock hero. Fans, dressed in t-shirts with his smiling head on it, are standing by the crush-barriers just before the stage. Above their heads they hold signs with declarations of love and encouragements.
Saturday 25.000 people travelled to the Gelredome just for Tijs Verwest, a.k.a. Tiësto, who as first DJ in the world gave a stadium concert.
It’s pretty weird, a DJ as concert animal. On other big dance events normally there are various artists on the flyer. Not this time: everything is about Tiësto. He’s on the concert flyer, the soft drink sponsor designed special cans with the picture of the DJ, the merchandising gets sold very well, just like the tickets in pre-sale: Tiësto sold his tickets faster than Sir Paul McCartney, not exactly a little boy in music industry, who played weeks before Tiësto in the Gelredome.
The show of the DJ lasted eight hours. No rock group does that. Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen come close with shows of just 3 hours. Tiësto only warmed up by then. Till the early morning, far after sunrise, the party continues. Thousands of fans stay until the last sounds come out of the speakers and only return home at 7 o’clock in the morning. The party goes by unproblematic; the police arrests 11 visitors who posessed too much drugs.
In his 19 year career Verwest raised the profession of spinning records to an art. With his record choice and mixing techniques he, like no-one else, knows how to move the trance lovers. Readers of the prestigious magazine DJ Magazine proclaimed him the world’s best DJ the end of last year. The 34 year old dance pioneer from Breda flies around the world for gigs in Los Angeles, Ibiza and London. In his own residence he can’t even do shoppings anonymously and a walk through the center of New York regularly ends in a signing session.
If one DJ could take the risk of giving a stadium concert, it was obvious it had to be Tiësto. Last year he sold a number of 5.500 tickets in a top speed for a solo-performance in Amsterdam. But Verwest did swallow by the idea of filling a complete football stadium. He even feared a half-empty stadium. “I didn’t think it would work out, but when I sold 6000 tickets the first day I started to believe in it”, says the modest DJ a few hours before his stadium debut.
The number one position, that means obligations. The trance pioneer feels responsable to take the world of housebeats in tow, because Verwest feels the genre stood still for some time. “Nothing really happens right now in the dance scene. It’s all not very surprising. With my status as best DJ I have to tow the scene”, he says self-confident.
He proved to come up to that ambitions, because Verwest presents a thrilling show which will not be exceeded by someone. After a warming-up hour – Tiësto is in fact his own pre-show - the show-piece really starts at midnight. The loud bass and fear melodies together form a hurricane of sound which takes the dance lovers away. The performance has not even begun for 15 minutes or the sweat comes from the bodies of a large crowd. The crowd everytime reacts with more noise when he spins a new stormer when the absolute peak comes with his world hit Flight 643. For minutes the whole stadium is screaming and jumping with the hands in the air.
For one night the Gelredome got transformed into a huge club with a 70 metre wide projection screen (!!!) behind Tiësto’s booth. With a big arsenal of special effects, which would be envied by many pop – and rockstars, the succesful DJ brings a superlative for hours: everytime again the DJ, who visibly enjoyed the entourage, knows how to rock the crowd even more.
The various guest artists, amongst them Kane-singer Dinand Woesthoff who together with Verwest made a dance version of the track Rain Down On Me, help him with his show. Climax after climax follows. In the year 2003 it’s obvious the traditional musicians have extra competition: the DJ is the new popstar of the 21st century.
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Current addictions: Reboot // Radio Slave // Matthias Tanzmann // Mathias Kaden // Audion // Martin Buttrich
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