Clubbing with James Tran

Lucky old me won 2x VIP tickets to Godskitchen. What a good way to end a long weekend. 3 nights out in a row I invited a friend and off we went – so here we go!

Godskitchen - During the Cosmic Gate set

Godskitchen @ Hordern Pavillion Sydney
Assessment Time: 10:00pm – 3:15am
Opening Times: 9:00pm – 7:00am
Website: http://www.futureentertainment.com.au/wsite/future-events/92-godskitchen-2009
Address: Hordern Pavllion, Fox Studios Sydney
Dress Code: Anything goes. I had dress shoes, jeans, fedora hat. Pretty inappropriate for a rave. Everybody else was pretty casual, and the hardcore shufflers had their leg warmers out with glowsticks and light spinny things ( I have no idea what they are called ) and shiny reflective pants.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Prepaid tickets for $60. Also available at the door.
Guestlist: VIP tickets available for express entry, and access to the VIP room.
Inside: Just two of the halls were open. One hall for Godskitchen main area to hold everybody, and the second hall to serve as a chillout space.
Cloak Room: Yes, available, but forgot the pricing.
Bar: $10 smirnoffs
DJs: Main acts were Cosmic Gate, Blank & Jones, and John ’00′ Flemming
Music: The first act was .. ‘meh’. Crowd wasn’t really into it, just swaying around. The boombox wasn’t on at this time. Next was Blank & Jones, and the ‘official’ start to the Godskitchen event. Music was good. Everybody here seemed to be waiting for Cosmic Gate to come on. Music not too bad either! But, being someone who hasn’t heard any of the DJ’s before, it wasn’t too alienating. Everyone else seemed to know how to sing along to the songs. Once John Flemming came on, the music started getting a bit too hard, and was starting to get very repetitive. That is not something I really liked.
Crowd: Just anybody who is into these DJs. Mixed crowd all natios and all ages.
Entertainment: The ‘boombox’ was the star of the show. In the main room, it was a huge projector screen spanning the width and height of the stage. Behind the projector were bright lights and the speakers themselves. Four projectors from the back scan down to push projected imagess into the screen for awesome effect. Boombox wasn’t activated until 11pm, when Blank & Jones came on. Also alongside the DJs on occasion were two dancers in the Boombox. Pretty cool
Atmosphere: Initially upto 11pm it was pretty tame. During Blank & Jones, and cosmic gate, the main arena got quite packed and the atmosphere was pretty awesome. After 3am I was just suffering fatigue from the thumping repetitive beats. This was not a sell out event, as opposed to the Melbourne show. Perhaps it was because it was the same day as Parklife, which had just finished at 10pm?
Videos: on the next section (continue reading…)

Related:

• Homemade @ Home Nightclub Sydney – Saturday 3rd October 2009
• Homemade Saturdays @ Home Nightclub – 9th September 2009
• Sin City Nightclub (Surfers Paradise) – Sunday 2nd Aug 2009
• Fridays @ Side Bar (3rd July 2009)
• Homemade Saturdays @ Home Bar Nightclub (20th June 2009)

We Love Sounds Winter Festival Sydney 2009 @ Hordern Pavillion

Heavily promoted, we decide to buy tickets for the event! Last festival I dressed up on my own as an Indian, so this time I wanted to get as many others on board. A friend jokingly suggested a Pirate theme for ‘Arrrmin’! I took it seriously and went ahead with it.

About We Love Sounds Winter Festival
Music: House, trance, some other forms of house, etc. 6 or 7 areas of it!
Ticket Price: $110 first release, $118 second release? The event had sold out
2009 venue: Horden Pavillion. The pavillion itself had Armin van Buuren for a 4h 30 minute set !
Cloak room: $4
Drinks: $9 for a can of smirnoff.
DJs: Armin van Buuren, Armin van Helden, Armin Van Burren, James Zabiela, Laidback Luke, Kissy Sell Out, Guy Gerber, Dirty South, Popof, Bobmo, Danger, Anja Schneider, In Flagranti Live, Guns N Bombs, Grafton Primary Live, Justin Martin, Pivot Live, Matthew Dekay, Hijack Passions,
Sascha Funke, Aston Shuffle, Ajax, Goodwill, Bang Gang, Emerson Todd
Time: 12pm-10pm

Dress Code: Anything and everything goes
Atmosphere: Pretty much got pumping and really busy around 4pm onwards. Before then the venues, besides the Armin Arena (Horden) were not very packed.

Review:
On lining up:
We got there at 12am, and there already was a line. We were close to the front. Doors actually opened around 12.30. It was smooth sailing from there.

Lining up to get into We Love Sounds. We were at the front

A girl in line joins our group
We met a girl, Devo, whose friend had dogged her. She was pretty cut up about it, so we let her join our group. Aren’t we so nice

Checking out all the areas:
I can remember 7 areas where you could dance.. 6 main areas plus the soul bar. crazy.. that’s what festivals are for I suppose.

My favourite rooms to dance in:
Lost Baggage
For me probably my favourite room to dance to was the Lost Baggage room (I think thats what it was called!) There was never a dull moment for me to whip out my legs and dance a piratey dance. Unfortunately though, this was probably the least popular room for the general public, and the big room, was at best of times, only half capacity.

Bang Gang Room
Just generally good beats, and a good crowd. This was basically an open hangar like thing. Anyway later in the night they even mixed some rnb with house, which was totally awesome.

Soul Bar:
My friends and I hung out here for a good hour or so, just dancing away at around 6 or 7pm. This was just a simple bar, but they were pumping out all the party tunes, in case you were getting sick of the house music. The atmosphere made it what it was – it could hold probably 20 or 30 people inside the floor, with a small area out back to relax. We actually had a chance here to talk to our fellow festival-goers, which is important!

The Armin Arena (Horden) (only during the armin set!):
Armin was to start playing at 5.30. I got into the Arena 4.30 and friends were resting from pure exhaustion – already!? Anyway I leave and tell them I would come back in half an hour. BIG MISTAKE! Half an hour later, the line outside is massive. So massive they closed off one of the entry doors – i was not going to get in on time. So I went to Bang Gang to dance there a bit. I finally got in at around 8pm! The place was packed as just to see Armin play. Music, the sheer massive crowd and the lights made an amazing atmosphere.

Experiences as a pirate

Dressing up.. as a pirate
The plan – invite everybody to join me in dressing up as a pirate!!
Actuality – I turned up in a pirate suit, and the only other person who turned up was C, and she came halfway through the day.  Did my friends (except C) think I could really could have converted them to dress up with me? I suppose not. I was more than happy to be an attention whore.

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Related:

• We love sounds this saturday – dress up as a pirate!
• Saturdays @ Coogee Bay Hotel: 3rd July 2010
• UNSW BSOC BSXC @ Home Bar (21st May 2009)
• Oxford Art Factory Quickie: Saturday 22nd May 2010
• Shanghai Nights @ Brooklyn Hotel: Friday 26th March 2010