The streets around Taipei 101 were done up in white last Saturday night as thousands of revelers decked out in funky white attire flooded into the area for the White Party at the Taipei World Trade Center Hall 2. In its second year, the massive trance event drew some 5,000 attendees from all over the island. Many came to see big-shot headliners Markus Schulz and Solarstone, others to flaunt their hot white duds, while some just wanted to go to a big party with loud music. Whatever their purpose, it seemed as if most of them were enjoying the atmosphere.
Those of us who were just too sober couldn't help but notice the reverberating effect caused the by hanger-like venue's poor acoustics, but that didn't seem to bother most of the crowd, because the lighting effects and video projections were so dazzling that they almost made up for the poor sound quality. The strangest thing though, was that no matter how much Schulz's uplifting trance or Solarstone's trippy trance made the crowd scream and wave their hands in the air, a large portion of people were actually not dancing much at all.
Here's what a few people had to say about the event:
"I'm not that into trance but the 'White' theme made the party very interesting," said Tommy Wong (王鈞毅). "The VJ was particularly impressive! DJ Markus Schulz played a bit too much cheesy stuff, but I really enjoyed the spacey and acid vibe in Solarstone's set. For me, it's the best party of the year."
Al Chen (陳逸駿) called it "a very successful party." "Hopefully there will be more big events like this in the future and with more music varieties," he said.
According to Shireen Joel, "The party was amazing - the whole set, the crowd and not to mention the music - it bumped so good! We had a night we will never forget."
Kiki Zhang (張育綺) thought "the lighting and stage effects [were] definitely better and much more creative than last year's party."
"You could tell that Solarstone put so much heart into his set," she said. "It felt like we were taken on a journey. His mixing was incredible! I really look forward to seeing him again."
Although he's been keeping a low profile on the DJ scene in Taipei recently, Dallas native producer and DJ Sona has been getting serious props in the international music circuit for his newest batch of productions.
His grooving, atmospheric deep-house track Nowhere to Run was picked up by BBC Radio's Pete Tong for his Bedroom Bedlam record label back in April and was rated No. 1 on Tong's weekly TV show Fast Trax. (Download it for free on iLike.com.) Another equally stellar deep house release, You Were There, was released this week on Beatport and has received support from uber-cool DJs like John Acquaviva, Mark Farina and Laurent Garnier.
Sona will launch his own record label Nosa Recordings early this autumn. For a sneak preview of what's to come, go to myspace.com/nosarecordings.
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