Armin Van Buuren @ Spundae, Chicago

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home > nightlife&clubs > Armin Van Buuren @ Spundae, Chicago

February 28, 2004 1:00 PM
by

Armin Van Buuren's extended sets at Spundae in Chicago are quickly becoming one of the city's most popular nights and the Dutch DJ showed why last Saturday at Vision.

A huge crowd of people piled around the clubs entrance as early as 11pm and by midnight the line was said to be wrapped well around the block. Clubbers from as far as Nebraska and Ohio had come to enjoy the sounds of one of the world‚s fastest rising DJ.

Inside Chicago's Jimmie Paige was warming things up in the already packed main room. He was clearly enjoying the crowded dance floor at such an early hour and was putting together a great warm up mix.

Playing a smooth mix of progressive house and trance, Paige filtered in tracks like Behrouz's stomping 'Azab' and kept the floor moving.

Paige‚s set that night set the table for Van Buuren perfectly and when he got behind the decks a little after 1am the place went wild.

Opening with some hard beats Van Buuren took control right away and wouldn‚t let go for the next four hours.

He relentlessly pounded away at the club‚s sound system, pushing it as hard as any DJ has in recent memory, before slowing things down a bit with Portishead's 'Roads' (Sultan and Tone Depth Remix).

Van Buuren then began to build things up again, only to peak and then slow things down one more time.

The crowd responded by going absolutely nuts each time.

Van Buuren was clearly into it as well and looked to be having a great time. Whether jumping around or signing autographs for people crowding behind the DJ booth, it seemed that he was constantly smiling.

Both Van Buuren and the crowd seemed to feed of each other and the result of their combined energies was very impressive.

Although known primarily as a trance DJ, Van Buuren's set was a lot harder than one might normally think of and he showed some great diversity with his track selection.

With deft mixing he hammered away with dark and techy tracks while still maintaining his own distinctive style. Van Buuren was extremely patient with the music and remained in complete control the entire time.

Mixing in some more well known tracks like Gabriel and Dresden's 'As the Rush Comes' which had the crowd singing along to it, and Paul Van Dyk's 'Crush' with some harder beats Van Buuren had the crowd in a complete frenzy by 3am.

With two more hours to go Van Buuren slowed things down one final time.

He steadily built the set up and when he began mixing in BT's epic 'Flaming June' his set went to the next level.

It was pure magic from that point on and the last hour of the set capped off the performance perfectly. The blissful ending was a perfect balance to the harder beginning and tied the set together.

The dance floor was still packed when at 5am Van Buuren dropped his last track and they wouldn‚t let him get away before he turned in two encores.

Closing out another great night, Van Buuren proved once again why he is one of the most popular DJs in the world today and why Chicago can't wait for him to return.