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Originally posted by rdevito Thank you very much

I listened to the Shanghai set last night for the first time in years. Its just as remembered. Awesome mixing, great track selection and typical Oakenfold. This brought it back for me as I was quite a bit dissapointed a few months ago when I caught, Oakenfold, Nervo, and Chuckie's tour. The highlight of the night was definitely Chuckie, but the dissapointment came when Oakenfold went on.

For starters, Chuckie played right before Oakenfold. And his set was pretty much all electro, huge build-ups and a fairly aggressive, in your face type of sound. And guess what? Oakenfold came out in much the same manner.

I couldn't believe it. For the first hour Oakenfold played almost identically to Chuckie. It was so sad. I expected Oakenfold to change it up. To drop into something entirely different. At least switch genres and he didnt. I think the Oakey that we all know and love would've never done that and I was hugely dissapointed.

But.. I wish I could say that's where it stopped. No way! Midway through his electro set, he brought the sound down and 3-4 hip/hop artists got on stage and started rapping. Yes! That's right, in the middle of an Oakenfold set, rappers took the stage, and played 10-15 minutes of horrible, and I mean horrible music...

Then.. and only after the night was pretty much in the shitter, did Oakenfold break out what he's famous for- trance. But, in no way was it pretty, nice trance. It was in your face, slam bam thank you ma'am trance. There were no moments in his set and again, I could've left after Chuckie and it would've been a brilliant night.

I guess all in all this is where Oakenfold is musically but he turned his back on a sound (circa 1999) that he was famous for and he lost it. Again, I used to listen to Oakenfold nightly. He was indeed one of my favorite dj's. But, after the Swordfish compiliation, he's been pretty much non existent.

He's one of m friends on Facebook and I see his monthly releases come out. Can't even bring myself to download them because I don't know what to expect. And that's been pretty much consistent since 2002 or so.

But I do have to say this. So far, out of 10+ years living, breathing, and eating EDM, Oakenfold has 3 of the most distinguishable sets. 2 of them as being the most horrible and 1 being one of the best.

His set at WMC2010 or maybe WMC2009 when he broke house Carl Cox like house music was just atrocious. Really Oakenfold? Really?? Plus there were a couple of different occasions where he actually trainwrecked. At WMC and Oakenfold- Just WOW!

The second most horrible came that night I already spoke about..

The best, well there's two.. Shanghai was damn Brilliant, and so was Another World..