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I had spent a bit of time deciding on whether to go to this due to the ticket price and the lack of "big name" performers whom I would've wanted to see. It would've been great if Ferry Corsten was there... Two Tribes 2002 had Tiesto, Two Tribes 2003 had Armin Van Buuren, so Two Tribes 2004 with Ferry would've been perfect - three of the most respected melodic/uplifting trance DJs each year in a row! So without Ferry, I was hesitant. In the end I decided that I'd rather spend the weekend with friends than have a boring night at home, and $84 is money that I can easily make back in many ways, or already have. Since I wasn't so enthusiastic I didn't plan much and so didn't bother to check my camera batteries - they were flat. Cam, I'm glad you took some nice lasers and lighting shots.
Since Ferry wasn't going to be there I wasn't expecting much from the night. I was relying on Christopher Lawrence to give me my trance hit, and the Godspeed room to get back to my hardcore rave roots.
I started lining up at 9:00pm and got in around 9:30pm. Luckily the line was under cover, since it was raining. I was surprised to hear some excellent uplifting tracks up to midnight by Nervous, Jumping Jack, and Pee Wee. I was glad to have arrived so early. I was expecting to hear pretty hard techno and hard trance, since that's what you'd expect from them at Sublime and Plastic. But there was none of that very hard unemotional crap. I wish I could identify the tracks but I couldn't... that's when tranceaddicts can help but there were none in sight... Joel, Cam? I ended up moving to the front and cheering on Jumping Jack for dropping such great tracks! The crowd around me felt the same way! You guys missed out, I wish you were all there to witness it. I found Wade at the end of Pee Wee's set, but by then it was too late. Though I think we heard Tiesto - Traffic... but that's nowhere near as uplifting as many of the tracks played earlier. The time up to midnight was the main highlight of my night. I'm thinking that these guys were told to play uplifting trance to compensate for Ferry Corsten's absence.
When Mario Piu got on I left and met up with friends who just got in, and went off to the Godpseed room and right into the rave world. Suae was pumping out some powerful trancecore, it was great stuff. Hixxy got on at 1am and it was some more excellent energetic and often melodic/uplifting trancecore with a few classic happy hardcore tracks. I hadn't danced to trancecore in a while so it was good to do it again, it's great fun to dance to 160+ bpm. It sure gives a good workout. It was great hanging with Josh and other friends too, I thought I was the only one on here who loved this music.
When it was 3:30am I went off to see how BT was. I found Joel and he told me it wasn't BT but Christopher Lawrence. I agreed with Joel that he didn't look like BT. The set was so slow that it just didn't feel like anything that I've heard from Christopher Lawrence. I was expecting progressive trance, but we got progressive house. I stayed for most of it, it was a bit boring but tolerable. I met quite a few tranceaddicts in there (Cam, Rachael & Faz, Erratik, Matt) and some other friends so that was fun. After some herbs the boringness faded away. I found Syd, Gil and Jace while affected, I'm sorry if I was acting weird.  I'm thinking that he played slow stuff because of the room he was put in andwas trying to play for such a crowd. I think it was the wrong room for him. Maybe if he was put into the main room and at an earlier time he'd play the music he is actually known for.
The late BT got on at 5:30am and started off with stuff that you definitely wouldn't call "dance music". I like his older smooth progressive house sounds, not his new electro/breaks/rock stuff. I was patient... or should I say I felt like a rock and "couldn't be bothered moving", so I stood around. Well I was extremely pleased to hear a lot of the smooth atmospheric stuff later on. We got to hear his live renditions of Dreaming and Flaming June, plus some other nice and uplifting vocal tracks. Flaming June was my highlight of his set... that melody in that track is one of the most deeply uplifting I've ever heard (and one of the first that got me hooked into "uplifting" music) and had great emotional effect when he played it.
After BT I went back into the Godspeed room, and I think it was Tom E playing hardcore. The hardened chemical-fuelled ravers remained in the mostly empty room. I hanged around until that was over, then went to see Nik Fish and Amber finish the night with the standard dark and hard tripe you'd expect from them... which I expected from the first three DJs but gladly did not come true. I stood around appreciating the fluoro multicoloured lasers and the patterns they were forming. It was certainly great eye candy.
The main room was twice as big as last year's, because they took out the partition in the middle. I didn't notice the echo until later in the night, was it happening all night and did it depend on where you were in the room?
The only reason why there is a Godspeed room is because Powerhouse Productions is one of the promoters. They are the ones who put on Utopia, the biggest rave event in Sydney. If you think production was great at Two Tribes, you should see how it is in Utopia at the Superdome. I first saw those honeycomb speaker sets at Utopia last year, I guess they decided to use them again here. The production at Two Tribes in 2002 was dismal, there weren't any lasers and it looked cheap. It's thanks to Powerhouse that we get excellent lighting and lasers. They are working off their experience from Utopia, which they have ran many years.
I'm glad they moved the hardcore room to the big hall downstairs, it suits the music so much better (dirty warehouse rave style). It could've easily been a totally seperate event. Well actually Godspeed is or was a seperate event run by Powerhouse for the rave scene some years ago. Powerhouse simply decided to include the event into Two Tribes as another room. Would you prefer not to have the Godspeed room and pay a cheaper ticket price? Or how about have Godspeed run as an actual seperate event e.g. have seperate tickets? It sure is an expensive ticket for the hardcore ravers who plan on staying in the Godspeed room all night. Josh, I know you spent a lot for that night, topped up with the taxi ride. You could have seen Scott Brown and Hixxy at "real" rave events (if you check out overdrive.com.au you would know of such events). I saw Hixxy and Scott Brown at Hyperspeed last year, tickets were around $40 and it was a more genuine dirty, raw and underground rave feel. The problem with multi-room events is that your tickets are helping to pay for rooms that you never would want to go into e.g. breaks and house rooms. I'm sure many people would feel that Godspeed is out-of-place at Two Tribes. I'm not speaking for myself, because I quite enjoyed it. I may not have attended if the Godspeed room was not there.
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Lucien Foort was playing pretty well, pounding funky prog that I can actually stand. Hybrid were on next, they started off pretty well but too much dub type stuff. I took a quick look at Mario Piu as well, that guy is like a moustache-less clone of Saddam Hussein!! He was playing pretty crap stuff though, a lot of electro and some really weird transitions (Staring at the Sun Brothers in Rhythm Mix into some minimalist hardstyle track :conf
).....
