Marc's Public Blog

2025/11/21 10th Dreamstate Socal Anniversary, in Long Beach by Queen Mary

π 2025-11-21 01:01 in Clubbing, Dreamstate, Festivals

Just like last years, delighted to be back: Dreamstate Socal is still an event I look forward to, all year.

This is our third year at Queen Mary, you can read the first QM report for Queen Mary vs NOS where DS used to be before that. It is true that I still prefer NOS for a variety of technical reasons (from later curfew, shorter distances between stages, no bridge or underpass tunnel, megastructures that allow more kick ass lasers, and a few more...), but honestly DS like it is run, is still going to be (and was) lots of fun, regardless of where it's run. For the record, it's already been confirmed to be at Queen Mary for next year, so we can put that discussion to rest :)

10 Years!

If you like this report, and want to see others/future ones, you can go on these pages:

All festival reports: http://ledtranceguy.org/festivals

IG stories and posts: https://www.instagram.com/ledtranceguy

IG channel future reports and pictures (clickme)

FB future reports and pictures: https://www.facebook.com/ledtranceguy

For IG, all the stories are here:

74 stories directly on IG

but I put all the IG stories in an single video: https://youtu.be/V5pN1lbgSHw

The Grounds: Back at Long Beach by Queen Mary

Let's go through the grounds again, starting with Passport for Insomniac subscribers:

cotton candy :)

if you pay enough, you get to come visit too :)

The Insomniac team still made those magical places:

the ring!

Of course, the water is always nice:

And then, there is the boat, it does look quite pretty from the outside. Unfortunately inside, especially behind the scenes, is literally falling apart. I didn't want to break the magic with pictures there, but honestly it's not looking great.

Generally, my thought this year on the venue:

the layout and footprint looked almost identical to last year

thankfully we mostly avoided the rain this year, but it's still 3 years in a row with rain and mud

It looked full with some choke points with this year's crowds, it wasn't unbearable, but I'd say it was close to the limit

Void was still felt too far even if it's half a perception issue, to the point that I only really went twice, too far for stage hopping.

Sequence was lovely but it felt like a 15mn walk from dream, it's really far end to end. NOS felt more compact while offering bigger and better stages. Not being able to reasonably stage hop between sequence and dream was unfortunate. This did benefit Vision though as it was in the middle :)

barely any lasers at dream, maybe a safety/logistical issue with the location, but disappointing for sets, especially Gareth. What is Gareth without real lasers? :)

but apart from limited lasers, the dream stage was beautiful

Weather

It was reasonably cold this year, but thankfully we barely avoided the rain this year. Obviously this location is much more subject to and affected by rain than NOS. It did rain a good amount just before the event, which sucked for the setup crews, but thankfully attendees were spared. They did a good job getting rid of most of the muddy mess with a better floor they installed:

People say a little rain has never killed anyone, and it does make the lasers look nice (that part is true), but they also forget how the first year at QM, we had a deluge of rain during the boat party that would have simply cancelled the event had it been a few hours earlier. That also made for a muddy mess the next day. So yeah, this honestly makes me nervous every year compared to San Bernardino that is a lot more dry, but I guess for now we just need to keep hoping to remain lucky :) (DS has already been confirmed to remain at QM next year).

The Queen Mary Boat After Parties

The boat had 3 rooms this year again, I think they may have been moved so that 2 of them were on the top floor which was convenient for stage hopping, but they were also the farthest you could be from bathrooms that were all the way down outside the boat, with no working elevator. It was a serious amount of steps to go up and down, and sadly the one working elevator was guarded by someone who made sure no one would get on it without an ADA wristband, and let's be honest, I didn't see many people with ADA wristbands on the boat, it was not ADA friendly in my opinion. So I was not impressed with that person denying the elevator to someone whose legs/knees were hurting but didn't have the ADA wristband. Her answer was to go down a lot of stairs and back up to somewhere not close to try and get an ADA wristband in the middle of the night :-/
I know (from having seen it) that parts of that boat are falling apart, the internal elevators are non functioning and virtually all bathrooms were non functioning too, which is why they were closed. This cruiseship is on its last legs indeed. The corridors with cabins were ok enough, as long as you were not hoping to sleep before 06:00, because the bass was shaking everything (unless you're a burning man veteran that can sleep next to speakers :) ).

People

Like every year, it was fun to see friends and nice costumes:

Pictures with friends:

Finally got to meet Federica/the_roving_raver

Marc from led2rave4

Pystrancemom who gave me lovely kandi, thank you

And the obligatory pictures with DJs :)

Superstrings

Roman Messer

Billy Gillies

My man, Fadi!

Neptune Project

Will Atkinson

Trancewax

John 00 Fleming, OMG his set was so good again

Ferry!

David Forbes, amused to see me yet more more time this year :)

We also organized and took some Trancefamily pictures:

Anyway, let's go through the 2 days of festival:

Day 1

Last year, DS started surprisingly early, 13:00, which was announced late and definitely a surprise. This year it went back to 16:00. I'm fine with anything (even if I want 3 days, haha), but hope the start time gets announced as early as possible so that people can get the right flights (both last year and this year, I had to do a difficult last minute plane change after an unexpected start time was announced).

I did start at Sequence to see Kristina Sky

then went to check out dream

This lovely b2b was quite early in the day

happy my friend Asteroid got a slot to play at Vision before Darren Tate

TFSF's Jonny Atom at Boom box

We also got all the superstrings :)

Anyway, back to dream for Giuseppe Ottaviani, beautiful stage like I said:

And vision:

And dream :)

for this epic PvD b2b Aly & Fila

Of course 01:00 was not the real end, next was the boat party. The lineup was great again, but I had a hard time enjoying the cramped and hot rooms (they did add fans, but it was still not very comfortable):

Asteroid again

FactorB and Neptune Project

One more chance to see superstrings

Day 1 Summary Video:

Day 2: and yes Tiesto Played Trance ;)

Day 2 also started at 16:00 which was no problem to manage:

TFSF's Khromata

Thanks to winter, it got dark quickly, just one hour later:

Trancewax

nice sunset

Many stages, many DJs, let's skip to the end, Dream got packed at the end when many went there to see Tiesto:

So, what happened? ;)
Honestly I just wanted to be happy, and it's just been 20 years since I got to see Tiesto play trance at Tiesto in Concert in LA:

Yes, I was there in 2005

I got the official T-shirt

and I was wearing it for Tiesto's set this DS :)

And yes, I saw him before that even, this was 2004 in New York:

Some people didn't like the first 15 minutes, I did. Some didn't like the rest which was more old school trance he used to play, because it was "the same thing" or "nothing new". I was "Hell, Tiesto is playing real trance, at Dreamstate! Can't we be very happy about that?" ... I was :)

Here's the full set:

So there you go, I had a great time, I was happy! :) But seriously if you're not happy enough with Tiesto, I was not happy with him leaving us for close to 20 years for commercial stuff that I sure don't care for. If he comes back, we have to welcome him back and the people he will bring to trance with him, that's a good thing!

The rest of the night was spent on the boat to finish the fun until we were exhausted:

Day 2 Summary Video:

Aftermath and Conclusion: Should this not be 3 days and with a bit more sleep?

Yes, I'm lazy, I kept the same headline as last year, but it's still fitting :)

DJS and music:

they were somewhat different from previous years, while keeping some favorites, not a bad thing

Some DJs were not able to come because the US has made it fairly expensive for them to get work visas and they can apparently take more than 6 months to be done unless you pay another "go faster" fee on top which is a few thousand dollars more. Sad :-//

And yet, great to see some new DJs like Roman Messer or Asteroid, both I knew from Europe but not everyone gets to go there.

Speaking of visas, I don't even want to know how much it cost to get all of superstrings :)

Queen Mary looks pretty from the outside, but inside:

It's hot as hell, to the point I had to remove my entire outfit to remove layers. They added a few fans, but still uncomfortably hot and humid.

The 3 stages were 4 very tall floors apart with only a single working elevator (the other ones have been broken for a long time and are part of the ship that is falling apart). I already explained above that having staff denying use of the one working elevator that was pretty much unused to people who could really have benefited from it, was poor.

The rooms on top of being too hot and cramped, were not big enough for everyone: on the 2nd day at 04;00, you couldn't get in Grand ballroom without waiting in line long enough for people to get out :-//

I mentioned the boat falling apart behind the scenes: if you get to see behind the curtain (I did), there are so many things that are very broken and left unfixed, we're talking broken walls, barely safe stuff. It's not meant to be guest facing, but not inspiring. So I guess my advice is don't look behind the curtain :)

From last year, it was similar:

still two days but enough DJs for 3 days, easily.

art was was still 5th stage and passport had its secret 6th stage.

Even moving back the start time from 13:00 to 16:00, it was still a lot of hours, although I'd have preferred more of them outside the boat.

And for anyone asking, Jeff Ryan from Insomniac has confirmed that DS will be at Queen Mary again next year, so he's saving us the time to talk about NOS vs QM :)

Should you go? Would I go Back?

I think I don't need to write a long essay to say "hell yes"

It's still the best night trance festival in the world production wise

Yes, too many DJs all at once in not enough hours, but well, better than the opposite problem :)

Where else do you get all those lovely costumes and nicely decorated LED totems? (for the flags in the smack middle of the crowd, blocking the view, maybe we can do without those, though :) ).

The insomniac crew continues to run a well oiled machine and did a great job this year again.

As parting words,

My best photos in google photos

summary video of the many Instagram Stories I took during the event:

So much fun, 'till next time:

PvD!

FB comments on this thread (facebook)

IG comments on this IG thread

See more images for 10th Dreamstate Socal Anniversary, in Long Beach by Queen Mary

2025/09/13 ADHD and EDM including Trance Music

π 2025-09-13 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

In case you didn't know, it's been shown that ADHD folks lack the same amount of dopamine that most people get naturally, which can be partially fixed with drugs like adderall. But indeed, EDM has also been shown to help, and it's been clear to me that Trance music definitely hits the spot for many ADHD folks in numbers alone :)

A few reference articles:

https://edmarmy.com/adhd-edm-and-dopamine-the-science-behind-the-connection

https://djmag.com/features/why-are-there-so-many-neurodivergent-people-electronic-music

https://djmag.com/features/exploring-relationship-between-neurodiversity-and-dance-music

See more images for ADHD and EDM including Trance Music

2025/09/04 A 2nd Captured Festival in Malta

π 2025-09-04 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

Captured Malta in 2024 was loads of fun if you forgot about the thailand-like hot humid weather last year. Thankfully the weather was more bearable this year: still pretty warm during the day, but not nearly as humid, which was the roughest part in 2024.
The lineup was another mix of Rong and Euphoria Malta: some bigger name DJs as well as plenty of lesser known DJs who were quite capable of playing lots of lovely trance for us to enjoy.
This year, the main 3 days were at Gianpula Village, which itself has a choice of 11 stages, and I not only didn't mind the mostly single location, I thought it was more convenient for staying nearby and not have to go all the way across the island to different clubs each night. Personally I like Ginapula and it provides enough variety in a single location, that I was happy to keep going there every day. Given the 3 trance festivals in Malta we now have every year, I'm going to continue the little game of comparison:

Most days: Euphoria wins with 6 days

Most hours of trance: Euphoria wins again with 68H. Captured actually has the least of all 3, but let's be clear that it was still more than plenty.

Boat Party: I'll state that once you've done it once (and I've done it 3 times now), it's not essential. Captured actually won because the boat was bigger and nicer

Time of the year: while it's true that May for Rong and Euphoria is nicer and milder weather, september may be a more convenient time for you and for US folks Captured is a win since it's not right before or after EDC Vegas

DJs: Rong definitely is the most expensive of all 3 and brings more bigger name DJs. However Euphoria goes to show that you don't need lots of big name DJs to have lots of fun. Captured sits in between both, and can be a bit of the best of both worlds

Emma Hewitt: Only Captured offers a lovely live trance vocalist. I absolutely love live sung trance, so huge huge plus for me

Venues: all 3 festivals have pros and cons, but on convenience, Captured using mostly Gianpula Village was s plus for me. If you prefer to try different clubs most days, Rong and Euphoria will take you to more (but also means more daily transport and no central hotel)

fake money/BS tokens: Rong: yes, and that sucks, Euphoria and Captured: no, and thank you

Seeing Ferry Corsten and others play vinyl when they never do so normally: big win for Captured

Most DJs/Stages: Rong won that one but at the same time, I don't really need to have more DJs I can see at the same time :)

Psytrance: another win for Captured, which was the only one to feature psy on at least one day (saturday). You might not care if you don't like psy, but I do :)

The only thing that wasn't perfect was the communication, lack of updates for DJ changes/swaps, and afternoon parties that were actually more fun this year given the weather was not as humid, but were only announced on a FB group in a post that FB censored for a while and in my case it only ever showed up 3 days later. Also, not ideal for people who are not interested in using FB, for them there was no way to get the updates. Hopefully they also get sent in a daily Email as needed in the future.

glad to be back :)

Day 1: Thursday, Boat Party and Club tigullio

we got a bigger boat this year

this was the older, smaller one

Thrillseekers and Space Brothers:

Day 1 video summary:

AFter the boat party, we went to club Tigullio

we were ready for Solarstone :)

more shirts :)

Day 2: Friday, Gianpula Village, Club Phoenix

Unfortunately, I didn't get the pre-party info for friday because FB never showed me the last minute post, so I missed it, so I went directly to Gianpula. There were 2 stages running that night

pool party was still open :)

first time meeting Three Drives!

Day 2 Summary:

Day 3: Saturday, Gianpula Village Triple Room Big Party

Saturday was the big day, 3 stages, biggest names, and psytrance! Party went rrom 19:00 to 04:00 and it was a lot! Actually no, it did start with pre-party around 16:30 at a far way hotel. After missing the rooftop pool party the previous day, I made it on saturday :) But it's a bummer it wasn't better announced and many missed it:

with wind on th root and in the shade, weather was ok

time to chill while listening to lovely tunes

After the rooftop party was over, time to go back to Gianpula Village.

group picture

big props to Captured for having the vinyl set room

what's better than having Steve play vinyl for us?

and psytrance!

Back to mainstage:

my favorite part again, Emma Hewitt

she sung a lovely set

And then, Gouryella:

And we ended with Craig Connelly

Day 3 Summary:

Day 4: Sunday, Recovery Party at Gianpula Marakesh

I expect sunday to be pretty low key since saturday had a lot of locals who came to party, but turns out Monday was a national holiday in Malta, so lots of people came to party sunday too, even up to 04:00 when Sam Mitcham closed. Sunday was single stage but honestly I actually prefer that. When there are 2 or 3 stages at once, and the other stages aren't crap music I don't like, it's tough because I know I'm missing out every hour.
Interestingly, Miss Monique went to play in some other club that night, which took some crowds away.

By day4 and after 6 festivals, my LED panels were starting to fail, so I had to field replace one, which I engineered to be a bit easier to do than last year :)

all working again, and ready for Orkidea :)

Marakesh was another room I had never been to, Gianpula has 11!

I could see where I was staying ;)

That night was actually a blood moon (moon eclipse), but it was very dim where we were:

Orkidea:

Andy Moor:

And Sam Mitcham closed the night by playing until 04:00:

picture with the man! Thanks Sam

Day 4 Summary:

Final Thoughts/Conclusion

I cheated and put them at the top :) That said, I can repeat that I can still recommend Captured Malta, it was loads of fun this year again. If you want a mix of bigger name DJs, while still keeping family feel and organizer that is also a DJ, then you'll have a great time at Captured. It's just hard for me to say you must go to one of the 3 over the other 2. Ideally you get to go to all 3 :) but if you can't, maybe the month where you can get time off will help, or if you like water activities, including diving, Malta water in May is cold, and much much nicer in September :)

Just like I had to thank the Euphoria folks for all the work and fun we got, I definitely need to thank Sam Mitcham and his crew for all the work that made Captured happen again this year, and the 4 great days of fun.

99 Instagram videos summary: