Sometimes, things are not what they seem.

Sometimes, you bear witness to something so staggeringly beautiful that every cell in your body is inundated with the spectacular sights, sensual contact, piquant fragrances and aural stimulus. Stunned into submission, you fail to look deeper; past the obvious splendour to see the true beauty that runs beneath. It is as if you are lost to the colours when blinded by the sun.

Interestingly, on the day Tiesto came to Queensland in celebration of the release of his fourth album for The Kaleidoscope Tour, our celebrated sunshine chose to take a vacation. A diffused twilight came to The Riverstage on this special Sunday where eight thousand Tiesto fans were neatly captured within a macrobiotic avant garde set. An audio visual pitch of dazzling light shows and pyrotechnics were concentrated around a specially crafted stage placed before two colossal LED screens, which in their dimensions, naturally highlighted the man himself. By all means, Tiesto is not a vertically challenged man. But outlined by these LED screens, he was dwarfed by their vast size.

Add to this visual stimuli the fresh brew of Tiesto’s swift foray into trendy indie electro; an exclusive recipe of broad synths, undulating basslines and rhythms with discordant beats laced by Tiesto’s customary beguiling vocal melodies. Starting with Sneaky Sound System’s I Will Be Here and then moving to Century featuring Calvin Harris to Fresh Fruit, and Feel It In My Bones featuring Tegan & Sara from his Kaleidoscope album, Tiesto then segued into his own trance remix of In The Dark, all delivered in a very cool and cultivated manner.

Oft times with all the finesse of a war hammer, successfully blend this electro sortie through a puree of Tiesto trance classics; crafted and designed to elicit the infamous reactions of yore. Rain mingled with tears on faces as Tiesto’s renown remix of Delerium’s Silence resonated through the stadium, as other favourites like the On the Floor Dub mix of Feel It, Trance Energy and Adagio For Strings tussled for attention alongside the Tiesto remix of Muse’s Resistance. That intense euphoria from hypnotic meters, overflowing chordal textures and darkly determined waves of bass came to the forefront – quite unlike our much-feted yet AWOL sun. Nevertheless, the balmy temperatures, cascading rain and drenched grass rally to release pungent aromas of cleansed earth beneath your dancing feet – completing one hell of a sensorial experience. From Tiesto’s musical applications to the digital illustrations on the LED screens, it was wave upon wave of brilliance – an intensity only enhanced with the sensuality of the downpour. It pissed right down on us even as Tiesto significantly paused to drop his remix of Calvin Harris’ I’m Not Alone onto the loudly astonished crowd for a tremendous climax to the evening.

With Tiesto’s superstardom, one comes to anticipate a great deal. Indeed, the bigger the build up, the greater the expectations. And with the extravagant MTV-like set, the grandiose lighting and incredible visual footage, the true beauty of Tiesto’s three hour set may well have been lost on some of us. Our senses overwhelmed by an abundance of intensity, the greater task of showcasing a variety of styles from indie electro through to uplifting trance in Tiesto’s usual indomitable style likely was overlooked in the daze.

Tiesto’s performance was a fire-breathing nyana bird of mammoth proportions, a-glow with all the flame throwing spectacles deemed necessary for short attention spans and unlived memoirs. It was too easy to be seduced by the obvious effects of this performance and wish for the 2004/2005 anthems notorious for too many remixes, re-edits and recitals. It was the complex subtleties of layered textures, layered rhythms and layered genres over carefully selected tunes reserved specially for the day that delicately hovered as the jewel of the show. These craftily constructed layers came second only to the formidable task of this dream realised. Indeed, the craftsmanship in shaping an enchanted vision into this organic beast was besieged by the very creature this beautifully publicised audio and visual performance became. The raging nyana bird of Tiesto was let loose in Brisbane’s Riverstage, but only the privileged few could perceive the luminous sparkle in its hide. For them, this was their day.