For the third year in a row, I made the pilgrimage to one of Melbourne’s greatest venues, a venue that has not only hosted large scale parties but has also been home to tennis matches, world swimming championships and rock music concerts – the famous Rod Laver Arena. Melbourne’s trance lovers yet again united for a wild night of uplifting emotive trance amongst other sounds, courtesy of Australia’s most well known promotions group Future Entertainment.

Putting on a spectacular show of lights, lasers and visuals, Rod Laver was transformed into the biggest and best nightclub Melbourne has seen in a while, where glow sticks ruled, the chewing gum (and your face) was common place, and reaching for the lasers was absolutely mandatory.

Arriving to be greeted by bounding puppy dogs at the gates, I hurried inside in time to see M.I.K.E. aka Push warming up the crowd in the main arena. What I noticed immediately was the unfortunate lack of rave gear – my gawd, its God’s for goodness sake! Fleuro was being worn everywhere, yet often in all the wrong way ( Summadayze style) and for all the wrong reasons. True to Melbourne form though, phatties were out and about but not as many as usual, which at an event like this is a shameful sight.

If you wanted to be shoved, pushed and stood on, the main floor was for you, but the grandstand was where I was most comfortable, finding a special spot to party it up with my mates and thankfully sit down when the need arose. Up in this magic spot, I had the best view in the house, looking out over the whole arena. The sound was crystal clear, radiating across the whole arena. The DJ high up in a huge scaffolding frame gave us all (and him too I’m sure) a fantastic sight and added to the whole amazing experience.

M.I.K.E kept the tunes constant and steady at a casual 135bpm, twisting and turning it, going slightly electro and techy at times. As we tipped over the edge of midnight, he shifted it up including some of his own tracks like Changes R Good and the absolute classic Universal Nation. He really built the crowd up as hundreds more keen clubbers flooded in.

Shifting us into more emotive uplifting trance territory, UK’s The Thrillseekers pulled out the big room tunes, taking the crowd higher and driving us on with a brilliant set filled with Anjunabeat tracks like Super8 & Tab’s Need to Feel (Wippenberg remix) along side massive trance numbers like Thrillseekers’ own production, Synaesthesia, which really is such a classic from the golden years of trance.

Originators of the Dutch trance sound, Rank 1 continued on from The Thrillseekers perfectly, progressing the emotive trance, pushing it harder and slightly faster and really working the crowd into a frenzy. Dropping in all their latest offerings plus some fantastic classics such as one of my all time favourite tracks Café Del Mar by Energy 52, Rank 1 delivered a lush set of banging tunes. From here on, the night really started to fly by as I completely lost myself in the trance waterfall that was washing all over me, and everyone else, in the arena.

Now on the home stretch, UK’s Richard Durand really drove it into the morning, playing an edgier set of trance, tech trance and harder beats. As to be expected, he dropped in his massive remix of Tiesto’s Lethal Industry which was just amaaazing. The crowd went mental and we were all left begging for more!

The four DJ’s sets flowed beautifully and so perfectly, complimenting each other on all levels. The night was loaded with tracks off all the biggest trance albums around right now like the Cream Ibiza 2007 mix from Eddie Halliwell, Armada Ibiza Summer 2007, Anjunabeats Volume 5, Armin Van Burren’s State of Trance and Paul van Dyk’s awesome latest offering In Between. Other big tracks played included Paul Webster’s Corruption, 4 Strings’ Mainline (4 Turntables mix), O’Callaghan & Hearney’s Exactly, Markus Schulz vs Chakra’s I Am, Bissen pres. The Crossover’s Exhale and Vincent De Moor’s Fly Away (Cosmic Gate Remix).

And much to my pleasure, I got to hear the Greg Downey remix of Bedrock’s Heaven Scent and the original Madagascar by Art of Trance – so lush and so so heavenly! As an old skool trance lover, I loved every minute of this night!

I never made it to any other room cause, to be honest, Gods is all about the trance. It’s about going out and hearing all those great trance tunes on a large scale that you haven’t be able to hear out anywhere else. Trance can’t usually compete with all the mainstream electro house around but after seeing this night go off as much as it did, it gave me faith that quality trance is still loved and enjoyed by many in Melbourne. Gods proves that trance is definitely not dead, and that is music to my ears!

Godskitchen 2007 – Definitely my best Gods ever, this was one of those nights that you dream of, where the ticket was worth every penny and the wait was worth every painstaking minute. Just quality.