For a third year running in 2011, inthemix is sending one of our loyal contributors along the East Coast with the Stereosonic tour. This time round, we picked star writer Ed Montano – you might know him as e_j_montano – as the lucky road-tripper. A talented wordsmith and keen expert on many of the line-up’s big names, Ed happily set off on his big adventure for the festival’s opening weekend.

After landing in Sydney for the first show, Ed’s very busy day began. As well as taking in all the action on-stage and behind-the-scenes, he went one-on-one with Carl Cox, Kaskade, Ferry Corsten and Armin van Buuren for inthemix.tv. As Ed steels himself for the second weekend of Stereosonic madness, here’s his rundown of the Sydney whirlwind.

“Having had the amazing good fortune to win ITM’s super-awesome Stereosonic contributor prize, my visit to the Sydney gig involved a quick flight up from Melbourne. A delayed flight and news of heavy rain in Sydney meant I had to get on my knees and pray to the gods of dance music to show me some love. How did they respond?

Well, upon arriving at the airport, the Stereosonic rep asked me if I’d mind sharing a shuttle bus to the festival with ten models. After giving it some serious thought for about, oooh, 0.0005 seconds, I figured the only reasonable response was, “Sure, not a problem.” If there’s ever a sign that you’re in for a great day, it’s being thrown on a mini-bus with ten models.

Given that I’ll be also be filing reviews from Melbourne and Brisbane, rather than skate around the festival like a madman trying to squeeze in as much as possible, I opted to devote Sydney to catching some big names and to check out the rest next weekend.

My day started with Kaskade entertaining the masses in the ANZ Stadium. When I first saw his early timeslot I was a little surprised, but it turned out to be the perfect slot for him to weave his magic, and by this point the clouds had completely disappeared and the sun was smiling down.