ThiRstY WorK

It was a Thursday night ... & time to rock the Regent '

12 May 2004

I heard voices all week telling me Tiesto was coming to town? Finally after two failed attempts someone had booked him? "Yikes they must have deep pockets i thought, as the worlds numero uno i don't think he would be cheap"

None the less I decided to go along. They had the Thirst Finals the night before at Blend, stories were it was a great night and that a Wellington Dj by the name of Matt Harris with some dirty DnB took it out on ya!

So queuing up at the Door the vibe was huge "Tiesto" "Pete Tong is coming" strange really it seemed the idea was to promote the thirst winner of the NZ Thirst comp, but some people didn't even know who had won it and where there to just see Tiesto?? oh well...

I entered not knowing what to expect, a beer company hosting a dance event it could be an eye opener, it could be a flop....

WOW! was my first word, Lasers, Massive Plasma TV Screens, screaming Fans, Local dj's going nuts and ripping the up the decks, laying down the best sound i have heard in a long time.

Miss Motif and Daniele Davoli were on stage when i made my way up the stairs, Daniele sporting lots of hair for the occasion. It was later to be revealed he was totally bald and had been wearing a wig the whole entire set, had me fooled.

Miss Motif was amazing, covering some really great tracks, just a shame she didn't sing with the other djs.

Pete Tong did his usual warm up the crowd set but to be honest i was expecting big things from him and after listing to so many of his essential mixes on bbc one in the UK i was quite disappointed. Call me a trainspotter but sadly he a large amount of played out tracks and it was only about his last 20 odd minutes before Tiesto arrived did he crank it up another notch.

Now the moment! was he here? I looked everywhere, up down, side to side and out of the corner of my eye there he was, sitting in a little room by the top of the stairs, he was here! Finally after 3 years of waiting i was going to see Tiesto In New Zealand.

He hit the decks with a roar, the crowd going insane, girls even screaming his name, it was something that reminded of the days of gatecrasher St James 2001 and OGA Nye 2002, just a dream.

Upon playing his third track the CD started skipping, anyother DJ I feel would have flipped out big time. He killed the CD right there and then, threw it out to the crowd chucked his head phones down and waved good bye to the crowd as if to say " there is my three songs catch ya again sometime" The crowd had laugh then he ran back and made up it with a 3 hour set of pure heaven.

He had a very Techy and Progy Start moving onto a really uplifting trance sound and even played some harder trance before coming back to some more Uplifting near the end. He mixed it like a techno DJ, he always had his hands on more vinyl or Cd's playing with every button you could possibly play with on the mixer.

In all the gigs i have been to i can honestly say i have never been taking on such a magical journey of dance music, from His mixing to watching him add his name in txt to peoples phones, signing t shirts while queuing up the next track, giving away records to the crowd like there was no tomorrow, waving and smiling to fans. This was one DJ really knew how the crowd was reacting that night.

Was he worth the 3 year wait? I think so.

The Girls and Boys that ran this event I think you have perhaps layed a platform for things to come? Maybe even raised the bar on "event style" Clubbing.

Take a step back and pat yourselves on the back, Plasma TV's on an AV Set-up out of this world, music that was so crisp and not so loud you couldn't take to the person next to you, and a crowd that was there for the music, not some hyped out "cram the kids in" event.

Some might say I might got caught up in the hype that is tiesto, I reckon you could have stuck any dj up there on the night and they would have rocked the place.

If you dont believe me then check out my snaps, I couldn't find one person on the night that didn't enjoy themselves!

' Oh and the chics that had the bubble making toys you rock too! they made some really cool effects with the lasers.