Spring: the time to celebrate the return of the light after the short, dark days of winter. And thus, Brisbane’s first days of spring would dawn with the coming of the ISOS Tour. In Search of Sunrise – the quest for knowledge and union in trance through the eighth installment of a long held tradition. But in 2010, the ISOS die had been recast, with the torch passed from the indie electro hands of Tiesto to the trance lined digits of Richard Durand. This national tour would finally come north to the Sunshine State, featuring dance druids Trent McDermott, Jonas Stenberg and Richard Durand in an ultimate pagan ceremony of epic proportions. Every trance, tech trance and progressive worshipper in Brisbane would congregate for this definitive Fridays @ Family blessing.

Trent McDermott, Melbourne’s minister of the devastating trance beats and gripping euphoric melodies warmed up Family’s main stage beautifully. Pulses of metric tiers mingled delightfully with resonant bass lines and joyous melodies, anointing The Family’s crystalline sound system. And so, Trent superbly set the scene for the coming of Richard Durand.

Amid a haze of laser beams and dancing orbs, the Reverend Richard Durand raised His arms to greet the first kiss of the main room’s dazzling LED’s rays. From the first beckoning note and over the course of the next three hours, Richard’s pious scriptures were borne through a sacred pilgrimage of trance and tech trance – oft times hard, other times mellifluous. Layers of torrid rhythms and swirling melodies unfurled upon the overflowing dance floor. His was a profound sermon in dance. With insistent flow and shape, emotive melodies sinuously entwined with undulating bass heavy phrases, overwhelmed all the while by persistent swelling drum patterns and at times, hovering percussive textures. We were held captive by His own distinguished remixes of Tiesto’s Lethal Industry, and Underworld’s Born Slippy, to his mashup of the epic tune Cirez DOn Off vs. Armin van Buuren feat. Sharon den Adel In And Out Of Love. And of course, what would an ISOS Tour be without tunes from the album itself; with standouts Beautiful by George Acosta featuring Fisher and an inspired singalong to Richard’s own track For No Reason . His palpable joy in performing was not lost upon his eager adorers as He entreated to our souls from behind His pulpit of four Pioneer CDJ2000s. With each and every CDJ, He made good use of the expansive equipment at His hands. Multiple lines of colourful notes and grains tangled with all the intimacy of a lover’s kiss, whilst under His benevolent gaze, we were in bliss.

The crowd had raised arms and voices in religious ecstasy at Richard’s final strains, an incredible sense of harmony pervading the jam-packed room. This sanctified bond would then be further compounded by the persuasive manner of Jonas Stenberg’s homily. Rocked to nirvana by Richard, we were now buoyed along a progressive journey by the Swedish cleric. Nerves once fraught by frayed beats were now calmed by Jonas’ balm of synth-laden energies and pleasurable primordial beats. Of course, such a significant ceremony could not be complete without the intensity of glimmering auroras surrounding it. For the entire service, AVJ Matty Smith sent electronic flares and radiant emissions streaming around the dance floor from impressive LED screens to a manifold of lasers, thus balancing and enhancing the force of such eloquent ISOS beats.

On the night when the tour for In Search of Sunrise hit the Sunshine State, Brisbane’s dance community welcomed the coming of spring to joyously embrace the light of this divine trio in a grand gesture of surrender. Leaving The Family, the search for sunrise had been victorious as we emerged into the day’s first light from the morning sky.