One of the city’s leading trance brands, White Sands has brought such international stars such as Roger Shah and Lange and Bart Claessen to Melbourne’s Room680. This evening was no exception, with North Irish duo Agnelli and Nelson booked to play a two and a half hour set. Known for their diving remixes of songs like John O’Callaghan’s Big Sky and their intense uplifting style of trance, they did not disappoint the energetic crowd.

Tonight, the booth was set forward from the main wall of the club, surrounded by the dance floor. I found this arrangement slightly less appealing than when the booth was set at the back end of the room, as it had been last time I visited, because it meant more people pushing through the crowd to traverse the room. However, it worked well with the dance platform set-up and the décor. Both main room and side room were well lit, and as always, impressively themed. An intense green laser show splashed down across the crowd from the back of the main room, and a brilliant strobe display went off with every intense breakdown. The sound quality, especially the bass, was also impressive, if slightly deafening.

I arrived around midnight in time to catch Steve Strangis vs Trent McDermott warming up the crowd. Their set had the already busy room eagerly moving, and built up gradually in tempo without becoming too intense too early. I enjoyed hearing a few of my current favourites out on the dance floor.

As 1AM rolled around, the crowd welcomed Robbie Nelson to the booth. The room was getting even more packed now as he started off the set nice and slow and melodic. After around an hour, it got more pumping with hard driving basslines that had the crowd seething, and yet every song seemed to be even more uplifting than the last. The main room was packed with people swaying their hands in the air to each breakdown. Aly & Fila’s remix of Everything by Vast Vision, particularly stood out, and the set came to a surprisingly techy finish, including the Joint Operations remix of Big Sky. I thought the hard finish worked well with such an uplifting set, especially since it had started out relatively slowly. Robbie seemed to be having a ball, and kept high-fiving the crowd.

I would have happily listened to Agnelli and Nelson all night, but was excited at 3:30AM when Melbourne’s own Brendan B took over the decks. He kept the lively crowd going with driving melodic tunes that transitioned smoothly from the set before. I heard many European classics that couldn’t recognise but immediately loved. Bb brought the set to a blissful ending with Carte Blanche by Veracocha, before letting Undertone’s *Dan Miat*t take over.

I also checked out the side room, which featured local support, several times through the night, and each time really enjoyed the change in music and having space to dance. At White Sands, this room is always uniquely intimate while still having awesome music and full bar.

I think I preferred the music and line-up this night to any other White Sands I’ve been to, I really enjoyed how hard and energetic the music got, something I’ve been disappointed by before when seeing uplifting trance acts. The club was more crowded than I had expected but everyone was friendly and seemed to be enjoying the night as much as myself. All in all a very enjoyable night!