Marc's Blog: clubbing - Dreamstate Socal 2021: Back to Trance Heaven After 2 Years

2020 was obviously the year from hell for lots of things, including festivals. EDC had a 2.5 year gap, and Dreamstate ended up with a 2 year gap, but despite probably losing a bunch of money during the pandemic, Insomniac did a great job putting a quality show as always, dealing with all the extra difficulties (artists cancelling due to covid, other artists unable to get visas to enter the US), and yet they went back to 4 stages instead of 3 in 2019.

Of course, many of us had fun at EDC Vegas a month ago, read more here: http://marc.merlins.org/perso/clubbing/post_2021-11-22_After-a-2_5Y-wait_-Our-next-EDC-Vegas.html , but while EDC has trance, it's not about trance, Dreamstate of course is about trance!

so glad to be back!

Unlike creamfields where some of the extra stages were honestly shit visually and audio quality-wise (and their security was dicks ), insomniac made sure all stages were as good as could be, even the smallest one (void).

The lineup was solid like I said:

Pictures libraries:

All Pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/J9xqDaD65USuWZV49

BestOf Pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ddho1tk1fvacqGes9

The Grounds

As always, it's not EDC Vegas level eye candy, but it's still quite good, nothing to complain about :)

The decors were great and the VIP areas were shiny:

If you didn't bring your own lighting, they had you covered:

The stages were as follows:

The dream stage was quite pretty, well done

The sequence, psytrance was ok-ish but the DJ booth wasn't lit well, so you could barely see who was playing

vision was good enough, but still had the annoying line to get in

even the smaller void, was good too

The People

Of course, what makes Dreamstate and EDC magical, is not just the eye candy that Insomniac brings, but what the attendees bring too, from good vibes, costumes, and totems:

TFSF's Katie-Ann did a great job with her psy outfit :)

That's not counting Afik's LED totem entourage, an ever growing list :)

Of course, we had our local trancefamily groups:

For the LED/tech nerd that I am, it was great to see more people with LED panels, some were able to use some of the code that I published online and make their own improvements on top:

really cool totem with 12 RGB panels (more than me, but less resolution than me), run by an FPGA card, well done!

of course Afik's trusty totem was here

and I had fun with my outfit :)

Day #1

So, let's start with Day #1, I got there bright and early, 17:00 when it opened:

so great to see Haliene again

also great to see Thrillseekers again

life is always better with lasers ;)

it was special to see Emma Hewitt, it's not every day

I've seen Fadi 6 times in the last months, but still love him each time :)

for those who don't know him, he is literally the nicest guy on earth

And to save the best for last, after Paul Van Dyk, was Ferry Corsten's Gouryella which was truly a religious experience for many, myself included. I still remember hearing it in what turned out to be 2016 at EDC at Circuit Grounds after consulting my archives :) Thank you so much Ferry for playing this again, albeit an updated version:

just seeing the lyrics brings the tunes back in my head :)

what a finish

Thank you Ferry.

Wait, you're saying you missed this? Well, don't worry, I recorded a bit over 2/3rd of it in my video summary of Day #1 (starting at 59:43):

Day #2

After just enough sleep, I had a bit of time to write some extra code for my LED outfit, including adding some DJ faces (see bottom for Craig, Liquid Soul, and Blastoyz), and an extra trancejesus has it on vynil screen (see above). I then went a bit early to check out the grounds before everything started for Day #2:

the calm before the storm :)

Jorza

Excited to see Xijaro & Pitch

Anthony pointed out the irony that as a blind man he got to play at the 'vision' stage :)

the costumed dancers were very good as always

Got some triplets from Whitenoise

absolutely delighted to see Alpha9 again, I enjoyed his set each time

FactorB again

Definitely enjoyed seeing Zero Gravity Arts again:

truly dope ass outfits

Super nice to see liquid soul, always smiling and happy with the joys of psytrance :)

Gareth back on mainstage

But I went to see Craig Connelly, because well, that was not even a question :)

Definitely enjoyed Blastoyz's set

Yoji Biomehanika

went to check out Aly & Fila's UV set

and finished the night and festival with Reality Test

And just like that, the 2 days, 18H of trance, were over. Thank you to insomniac, all the artists and everyone who brought in outfits, smiles, and good vibes.

Video summary of Day #2: