After a short hiatus, Australia’s biggest and best dance music festival, Two Tribes, finally came back to Queensland. All the pre-event hype, all the waiting, finally over…

Arriving around 10:30, we were met with a sea of people queuing to either side of the entrance. Some ensuing ticketing problems followed for some people with Moshtix tickets as well as people with industry tickets that were suppose to be on the guest list. Fortunately for us, our tickets were all set and we were inside within 15 minutes. A quick walk around the event to work out where the Godskitchen, Subliminal, Air Recordings and Ten Pound Crew & Two Tribes Local Heroes Arena’s were and we decided to settle at Godskitchen. Unfortunately for us Technasia’s live set had finished much to the disappointment of this reviewer. Reports suggest that Technasia was one of the sets of the night, and maybe should have been put on at a later time for more to enjoy.

As the crowd started to build quickly, Max Graham, Dylan Rhymes, Freestyle and Blackstrobe went about their business on their respective stages. This reviewer spent his time bouncing between the house and electro of Max Graham and the electro live act that is Blackstrobe. Max Graham had the majority of the more mainstream crowd, Blackstrobe had a sizeable more ‘in the know’ type of crowd merrily bouncing away to their beats.

A few minutes before the big hand strikes 11 and it was over to the Ten Pound Crew & Two Tribes Local Heroes Arena to see local legends, The Stafford Brothers. DJ Freestyle, one of Australia’s finest house exports, was finishing off a solid deep house set to only a handful of punters. This handful of punters quickly changed once the Stafford Brothers took centre stage. Within five minutes of starting the Locals Arena had gone from near empty, to overfilling out onto the pavement with happy punters. Staying for only the first half an hour of their set, the highlights included their remix of infamous Boston track  ‘More Than A Feeling’ and Chris Stafford began crowd surfing, to the amusement of all present (check ITM’s photo galleries for visual proof). Once again the brothers proved to a sizeable crowd why they are Queensland’s most travelled DJs.  

Running between the Stafford Brothers and the Subliminal Arena for much of the hour, I was lucky enough to catch parts of Blackstrobe’s much anticipated live show. Unfortunately I only caught two or three songs of their set, but from what I heard, I definitely enjoyed. It was a unique set unlike anything I had ever heard before. So good in fact, that the majority that were present for the entirety of their set claimed it as being one of the highlights of their night.

Half 11 and it was time for one of the most anticipated performances of the night. This came in the way of American progressive trance superstar producer and DJ, Markus Schulz. Host of one of the world’s most listened to radio shows on Global DJ Broadcast and the supporting DJ choice for Armin Van Buuren, Mr Schulz is a man of immense talent, and was here to play in Brisbane for the very first time. Starting off extremely slow, deep and progressive, he seemed to lose a lot of the crowd that Max Graham had built up at the beginning. By mid-set though the tempo had started to change and had moved from that chugging progressive to more trance orientated sounds. As 1 o’clock approached and the crowd started to swell for Armin Van Buuren, Schulz finished off his set with Nalin & Kane’s legendary ‘Open Your Eyes’. This definitely was the highlight of this reviewer’s night. With the first few piano riffs coming through the speakers, and the lush vocals that accompany it, I wasn’t dreaming, the song was being played, and I obviously wasn’t the only one that was enjoying it, as I was surrounded by thousands of people with smiles on their faces, eyes closed and hands in the air. That song alone would’ve made the ticket price worthwhile.

During Markus Schulz’s set Tocadisco was working the crowd into a bit of a frenzy in the Subliminal room while the Stafford Brothers finished off their set and Brisbane’s Lectrolux did their thing in the Locals Arena. In the Air Recordings room Dylan Rhymes and Ali B tried to work to a smallish crowd in one of the events back rooms.

1am, and time for the World’s No. 3 DJ, Dutch trance megastar Armin Van Buuren. A regular down under, Armin has become a fan favourite right around the country and the world with his angelic uplifting trance DJ sets and his various productions. 3 hours of aural pleasure soon followed. I spent the next 3 hours bouncing between the Godskitchen Arena with Armin and the Subliminal Arena with French house superstar David Guetta and then Subliminal’s head honcho Erick Morillo.

While Armin did what he does best in the GK Arena, Frenchmen David Guetta played easily the best house set of the night over in the Subliminal Arena. Upstaging Erick Morillo on his own stage is a tough ask, but David ‘F*ck Me I’m Famous’ Guetta did exactly that. Playing a lot harder and tougher than a lot of people expected, his big room house set was topped off by a 10 minute version of ‘Just A Little More Love’ to complete his set. The atmosphere for those 10 minutes was probably the peak of the entire event for the night, with girls absolutely losing the plot left, right and centre, it was as though Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp had just walked onto stage naked, as the females in the room were absolutely beside themselves.

Next up was Subliminal’s head honcho, Erick Morillo, one of the world’s best funky house DJs. This New Yorker has globally been labelled as extremely egotistical, which is represented through his DJ sets. When you’re getting cosy with supermodel Naomi Campbell and your collaborating with Sean P. Diddy Coombs, who begs to MC during your DJ sets, it’s no wonder he’s having trouble keeping his ego in check. Having wanted to see this man play for nearly 5 years, and living off downloading his live sets off the internet from around the world, I must say I was slightly disappointed by what I heard on the night. Maybe I had too high an expectation, from hearing some fantastic live sets on the internet, but it just seemed a bit too slow and didn’t seem to have that up-tempo party funky house style that he is so well known for. A highlight of the set came in the way of the Eurythmics classic ‘Sweet Dreams;, but every time I ran back to see Morillo play after being in GK Arena with Armin, I was drawn back to the GK Arena through a lack of apparent motivation with his set. In saying this though I probably only saw 20-30 minutes of his 2 hour set, which could be through to the brilliance of Armin or the lack of from Morillo, I’ll let others decide.  

As Armin moved into the last half hour of his set, over in the Air Recordings arena, James Lavelle, famous from his work with group Unkle and his Global Underground compilations, was finishing an hour and a half of progressive sounds. Lavelle was on my to see list pre-event, but with possibly the world’s best trance (AVB) & house DJ (Erick Morillo) in the world to compete with, it was always going to be a hard task. For those present, which by the looks of things was only a handful of people, he played a pretty unimpressive, unmotivated set, to the disappointment of quite a few people. Being such a big profile DJ, it may have been a hit to the ego to only be playing to so little people, next time he is out though, hopefully more people embrace his sound and go and check him out.

As Two Tribes moved into the last hour of the event, the specific closing acts for each stage were doing their thing. In the Locals Arena, local drum and bass kings the Rudebwoyz were doing their thing in Air Recordings. International breaks DJ Lee Coombs was bringing things to a close. For this reviewer, like most of the night, the last hour was spent running between the Godskitchen & Subliminal Arena’s. Godskitchen had hard trance and acid DJ Kai Tracid, while Subliminal would finish with a member of the Swedish House Mafia Steve Angello. Keen to see both acts play I literally ran back and forth for the hour, with whichever DJ playing the better songs keeping me for that duration until a bad song came on.

Kai Tracid definitely kept me in his arena longer, with a mixture of trance, hard dance and acid. I loved every second of his set that I was present. Highlights were definitely Tiesto’s – ‘Trafifc’ and finishing with Push – ‘Universal Nation’ was a very special moment. After listening to hard trance it always is hard to come down a few BPMs and enjoy a slower tempo, even so I was slightly unimpressed by Angello.

With the event finished and walking out of the arena on our trip back to the Gold Coast, I had more time than most to reflect on the previous 8 hours. With mixed reviews from punters in the follow up to the event, through this reviewer’s eyes this event was a brilliant night and thoroughly more enjoyable than Summafieldayze.

Time to reflect on the good and the bad, and I definitely saw more good than bad. Firstly let’s address the bad news. Ticketing: Obviously the ticketing situation was the first thing a lot of people complained about. Nobody knows the full story or what went wrong except for the promoters and Moshtix, but plainly, machines were breaking down, nobody including security, promoters, ticketing ladies or punters seemed to have any idea of what was going on. Yes it wasn’t good, and yes people probably had to wait 30minutes longer than expected, but once inside the event they should have left their gripes at the door. Drink cards: now I don’t know whether to put this as a bad or a good thing, as there was a lot of mixed feelings about this. I personally loved the drink card situation, I thought it made the line for getting a drink from the bar shorter and so was happy with them; others weren’t, but horses for courses. Now onto the good news. Firstly, having Two Tribes back in Queensland is a great thing. Three times it has already come and gone and the third time wasn’t so lucky, so let’s hope this time was. Music: Is what brings us to these events. Musically I thought Two Tribes was one of the best events I’ve ever been to. I may be slightly biased in my opinion as progressive, trance and house are my three favourite genres and those are three Two Tribes had well and truly covered. Markus Schulz, Blackstrobe, Armin Van Buuren, Erick Morillo, David Guetta, Stafford Brothers and Max Graham all made this night a memorable one for me and for the punters around me. Toilets: When you go to festivals, you expect one thing, poor toilets. At Two Tribes this was definitely not the case. With plenty of Portaloos present as well as the RNA show grounds’ own established toilets lining up to go to the bathroom was never a problem. The longest I had to wait all night was about a minute and they were always clean and filled with toilet paper.

Overall, some might say room for improvement, but I for one was just happy that Two Tribes is back in our fair state! I found it to be one of, if not, the best night of the year. Some people may have said it was the best night of the year, others might proclaim to never go again after some first year teething problems. I will just say that for those that walked away with a frown because of sound or ticketing problems, think back to the first Summafieldayze with the sound, dirt flooring and toilet issues and look at where the event has come to today. Two Tribes is Australia’s biggest and best dance music festival and hopefully is here to stay. If the same problems occur next year then yeah kick up a stink, but first year problems are always going to be on the cards.

Personally for this reviewer I was overjoyed at the excitement of having Two Tribes back in Queensland and so far it’s the best event I’ve been to all year.

9/10 

Here’s to next year!!