It was Sydney’s turn to celebrate the biggest trance birthday of the decade – the milestone 500th show for A State of Trance, which over the last 10 years has racked up 15 million listeners in 26 countries. With Armin van Buuren leading the way, this history-making A State Of Trance 500 spectacular promised to transform Acer Arena into a dance event of epic proportions – and that it did!

Big credit must be given to American-born Taiwanese DJ and producer Andrew Chen, aka Shogun, for opening the show with the stadium-style theatrics and laser lighting already blowing everyone away. He hit us up with plenty to get excited about, with the definite highlight of his set being when he dropped the Club remix of Sun & Moon from Above & Beyond with a tight net of punters there to support him, before mixing in his joint effort with Emma Lock, Save Me.

Next on the bill was our very own TyDi, the Queenslander wasting no time belting out Sonic Element’s Change into Marlo’s remix of TyDi’s Calling into BT’s The Lights in Things, which was a definite treat for the fans.

Thanks to the solid effort of both Shogun and TyDi, Dutch DJ Menno de Jong stepped out to a full house arena of roaring punters. Menno de Jong had big shoes to fill, but he quickly reminded us how he is fast becoming the next challenger to the Dutch dance throne, dropping his Ancient Mysteries track into the Paul Miller rework of ReLocate’s Spirit, that sent everyone on a frenzy. As a send-off, he left us with the 2000 remake of M.I.K.E pres. Push’s Strange World.

It’s difficult to truly describe the energy levels that were present when Egyptian trance duo Aly & Fila stepped onto the stage. It was electrifying. Their hour-and-15 minute set was filled with plenty of euphoric, uplifting sweeping trance tracks from their successful Rising Sun album.

If I could go back in time and relive any part of the night I can hands down say it was when they dropped their track with Sue Maclaren, Still. Whether it was the perfect timing of the night, or the lighting display, it was as if everyone that had to arrive had arrived and for a brief flash we were all held in the same euphoric moment of excitement together.

It was then time to meet the man they call Alex M.O.R.P.H! Behind his bespoke Macbook/Ableton set-up, his commanding set confidently combinined an arsenal of floor-jamming tracks including the Beltek’s remix of Deep Voices’ Autumn Leaves, soothed into Thrillseekers’ Synaesthesia.

The German heavyweight then surprised everyone when Armin cheekily appeared on the big screen from backstage, where he was broadcasting his radio show live. Of course, this exhilarated the jam-packed arena. And if that wasn’t stimulating enough, Alex M.O.R.P.H dropping his remix of Armin van Buuren and Susana’s Shivers no doubt sealed the deal.

Enter the almighty Armin. The reigning #1 DJ at last graced us, sporting his famous grin as the tightly-squeezed crowd went nuts. Starting off his set nicely with Gaia’s Status Excessu D (which, if you’re wondering, is Latin for A State of Trance 500) before dropping Ferry Corsten’s Feel It into Alexander Popov’s remix of Mirage, which got the first hour of his blissful set well under way.

A definite highlight was hearing him play his collaboration with Sophie Ellis Bextor, Not Giving Up On Love, and Cosmic Gates’s remix of Robbie Rivera’s Departures into Ashley Wallbridge’s Jynx.

By the second hour Armin was in full swing (my favourite section of the whole set), belting out his BT collaboration These Silent Hearts into Giuseppe Ottaviani’s remix of Sanctuary by Gareth Emery. An exquisite moment happened when Armin lowered the volume to the sea of hands to hear Sydney yell Lucy Saunders’ vocal in a capella – “S-A-N-C-T-U-A-R-Y”. Another moment of the night where I must admit it was hard to contain oneself.

If I had to be picky about something I’d have to say the bass volume level could have been a teeny bit lower, as many of us had to leave the arena at times to be able to give our ears a rest. Given his set commenced at 3am, by the last hour it did seem as though a fair amount of people had called it a night, with the arena seemingly less packed.

However Armin managed to continue his successful streak, still maintaining his cheeky grin and dancing away. He ended with tracks including Chris Schweitzer’s bootleg remix of Zombie Nation’s Kernkraft 400, dropping also the Back 2 To The Future remix of Cosmic Gate’s Exploration of Space, which I must say got all the boys in the audience a little ecstatic.

Finishing off with the V-One’s Living Cities remix of Solar Stone’s Seven Cities, he left the stage for what seemed like a micro-second before coming back and dropping his track feat DJ Shah and Chris Jones’s Going Wrong, which was soaked up quite nicely to say the least.

Whilst he slowed down the track and his audience embraced him with cheers, he picked up the mic and said: “Did you have fun Sydney? You know what…I think I’m gonna have a beer after this.”

After he thanked the promoters and everyone in the team including his supporting DJs, he gave a big shout out to the worldwide trance family reminding us of the millions of listeners that were sharing this experience with us, as the event was streamed live. Before he left he said one last thing, “See you at 550?” Hell yes!