Armin van Buuren’s annual tour was upon us again. Despite a lot of people being dissapointed by his recent Two Tribes performance, there still seemed to be a decent amount of excitement leading up to this year’s tour. I’m not the biggest Armin fan, but when given the opportunity to review, I jumped up at the chance to hopefully bring myself out of being somewhat jaded.

I arrived at around 10:30pm to hear the tail end of Mark James dropping Richard Durand’s remix of the Niels Van Gogh Vs Eniac track, Pulverturm. It was the first time I’d heard the Future Entertainment head honcho play out, he played pretty banging for so early on in the night, but it was entertaining none the less.

At this point I decided to get a drink and check out the venue. The venue wasn’t as small as it was made out to be, and I was pleasantly surprised that at max capacity, there was still plenty of room to move. Drinks weren’t hideously over priced, but they did charge $2 for a glass of water (or a bottle for $5). To their credit though I don’t think I spent more than 5 minutes lining up all night, which has got to be a record for most QLD clubs. The crowd seemed to be a 50/50 split of people wearing white shirts, indicating there would’ve been the support for the white party that Brisbane missed out on. Those without white shirts for the most part displayed the typical image most have of the rude and pushy Gold Coast punter. Despite the room to move, the club still could’ve done with a bit more air conditioning.

Now it was time for the main man Armin van Buuren to step up to the decks. His new track Rush Hour brought a much needed strong sense of euphoria to the room. Armin van Buuren releases can be very hit and miss, and Rush Hour was definitely a hit, possibly his strongest release in a few years.

He then continued building up by dropping Rank1’s new remix of the electro/trance crossover collaboration by Miles and Alex M.O.R.P.H, Life Less Ordinary. I wasn’t a huge fan of this track the first time I heard it, but its simplicity and effectiveness proved to be an absolute floor smasher, and to be honest I’ve had it on repeat ever since. The rest of his set brought out the best and worst of trance over the past 12 months. He played the absolutely lush melodious Purple Mood – One Night in Tokyo and the equally mediocre, Sunlounger – White Sand, both of them being DJ Shah side projects, it was a good reflection on some of his best and worst work.

He played a range of other tracks as well, but definitely highlighted one of my qualms with trance at the moment; too many remixes of classic tracks. Although Greg Downey’s remix of Bedrock – Heaven Scent and Marco V’s remix of Josh Wink – Higher State of Consciousness went down a treat. So did the Coldware Remix of Armin’s own Communication (Part 3).

The rest of his set I found to be up and down, other highlights included Amadeus vs. Aly & Fila – A Dream Of Peace, and Armin’s collaboration with Rank1 & Krush – This World is Watching Me. Lowlights included Filo and Peri’s new track, The Anthem (at which I heard “I hate this track” from 5 different people) and his own Love You More.

Overall Armin was definitely enjoyable. There wasn’t much but big tunes all night long, and no boundaries were really pushed, but I still enjoyed my night. Armin is known to always have time for his fans, but straight after his set, he was escorted by a security guard straight to the exit. At the end of the night, it was an interesting choice of venue, but it didn’t damper on the night.