ASOT 500

In 2001 a guy named Armin van Buuren started a radio show, focusing on trance, called A State of Trance, or ASOT for short. In 2011 the show had its 10 year anniversary and reached the 500 episode milestone. To celebrate this Armin van Buuren arranged five large trance events in five different cities on five different continents: Johannesburg, South Africa; Miami, USA; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Den Borsh, The Netherlands and Sidney, Australia. The Den Borsh event were the biggest with a around 20-25.000 listening to trance on five scenes! The event started at 21:00 and the last of the more than 40 DJ's ended his set at 07:00.

Every week I listen to a radio show called Trance on Demand. The DJ of that show, DJ Hilander, were supposed to go to ASOT500 in Den Borsh with his brother and friend, but the brother had to cancel. As there were basically no one else I got a chance to grab his ticket. So on the morning of 9th of April I first took a 2�½ hour train ride to meet with Hilander and his friend, and then went for a 10 hour car ride towards Den Borsh! We reached our destination a little less than an hour before the start. We have bought the Deluxe tickets in hopes of getting a better experience, and it was totally worth it. The deluxe tribunes were not as packed as the floor, and there were a railing were you could relax your legs a bit - 'cause damn it is hard to stand up for nine hours straight! :P

With five scenes and 40 DJ's it is not easy to figure out what to listen to and when, but the others had it all planned out, so I just followed them around. We started at the largest scene, A State of Blue, and listened to Mat Zo and Arty. Then to the second smallest scene, A State of Red, to listen to Estiva. Then back to A State of Blue to listen to Above & Beyond and of course Armin van Buuren him self. Finally we went to the third scene, A State of Yellow, to listen to the only Danish DJ in the event, Daniel Kandi. He ended his set at 06:00 and we were beat and headed out.

This is the first time I have ever been to an event like this. In fact it is the first time I am at a "real" concert! And to think I did this in a different country with two guys I barely knew! But it was awesome. Seriously awesome. Even if you did not like trance you would still be blown away by the awesomeness :P . The music was extremely loud. I know it usually is at concerts but this was just ridiculously loud. One bad thing about the event in general were the fact that the bass might have been to loud for trance IMO. This might be because I like uplifting trance the most where the cheesy piano melodies rules. Might also be the reason why Daniel Kandi had the IMO best set of the night as he is pure uplifting.

The Crowd at A State of Blue during Above & Beyond's set

The ride home was not easy. I had been up for over 24 hours by then and had trouble sleeping. I might have gotten around an hour of sleep when it was my turn to take the wheel. Barely had it for two hours before I knew I had to switch or else we would end up in the ditch. Slept for most of the ride home after that... 2�½ hours train, 10 hours car, 9 hours trance, 10 hours car and 2�½ hours train and only ate at Burger King and McDonalds - yeah, I was wasted.

During the whole trip down there and back we listened to trance in the car. I knew we would do this and feared a bit that I would be tired of trance before the weekend was over. But I was not. Not even close. I might just like trance even more now :S .