The year that was 2011 brought us tours from many great trance DJs: Armin van Buuren, Above and Beyond, Dash Berlin, Arty and Jochen Miller all gracing our shores. Topping off the massive year with a New Year’s Eve show was one of the world’s Top 10 DJs, Markus Schulz, bringing us his Global DJ Broadcast live show.

The production at the Metro was excellent, the laser show was spectacular and compared to Armin’s Intimate Night at the Metro, it was miniscule. The sound was superb and the big room tracks being played by Arbor created a nice progression in warming up the crowd with a taste of tech and electro tinged trance, before Markus graces the decks for the last few moments of 2011.

With just eight minutes until midnight, the Genesis team gave us a quick review of the year that was with a video montage of global events that occurred over the past year, full of love, tragedy and triumph.

As the clock struck 12:00am, Markus graced the decks, hammering out some amazing deep progressive tracks and sending the crowd into a hands-in-the-air frenzy. At one point, the sound dropped out for a few moments, but Markus got right back into it and kicked off 2012 with a bang. Schulz dropped a host of classics throughout the night: tracks like Advanced from Marcel Woods, the ID remix of Silence by Delirium and the Orjan Nilsen remix of Armin’s Blue Fear all proving sure crowd pleasers.

Other noteworthy tracks played during the night included the massive Alesso remix of Pressure by Nadia Ali, Starkillers and Alex Kenji. The crowd went wild when Markus dropped the track that should have been the tune of the year, Be Your Sound by Cosmic Gate with Emma Hewitt, and Blikkenslager by Aerofoil vs. Marc Simz was another dance floor destroyer, with its deep, dark and eclectic beats.

Markus finished the night with New World, but the party didn’t end there – rather, it was resonated into the side room with Titan and Onekid. They played a set of fantastic classics, including Silence (Above and Beyond’s 2011 Remix), the Dogzilla remix of Dark Side of the Moon and A&B vs Gareth Emery on a Metropolis Day to top off a great night, and a great year.

Overall, the Markus Schulz New Year Eve Global DJ Broadcast Experience at the Metro was fantastic – there was an excellent vibe, fantastic musical progression, lasers and a crowd that was there to party. Let’s wait and see what 2012 brings us for trance, and remember 2011 as the year trance invaded and conquered Australia.