DMb | Dance Music blog & Podcast

Last night, during his radio show, Armin van Buuren revealed 5 extra events of the A State of Trance 550 celebration. Next to events in Belgrade, Moscow and Kiev, the 550th episode of the show will also be celebrated in Los Angeles and Miami. The grand finale will take place in Den Bosch on March 31st, 2012. Divided over 4 weeks and taking place on 2 different continents, ASOT 550 will be the biggest show the popular DJ has ever done.

A State of Trance 550 kicks off on March 3rd in Serbia’s Belgrade, to move to Russia’s capital Moscow only 4 days later on March 7th. Ukrainian dance lovers will be dancing in Kiev on March 10th. This time, Armin lands his ASOT show twice in the US. On March 17th, as part of the Beyond Wonderland festival in Los Angeles and in Miami on March 25th. On March 31st, the biggest and final edition of ASOT 550 takes place in the Brabanthallen of Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Armin announced the full line-up for the Dutch edition of A State of Trance 550 last night, which can now be found via www.astateoftrance.com.

Armin:“Like last year, I wanted to lay it on again, so that ASOT 550 turns into a real worldwide happening. I’m very much looking forward to share this milestone with all listeners, visitors and DJ’s!”

Next to these 6 events, Armin and his team are also looking into the possibilities of an exclusive pre-party on the first of March 2012. The full line-up of all events, as well as the winner of the wildcard for the A State of Trance 550 Theme contest will be announced next week, on December 8th. After that, the voting poll for the contest opens and people are able to vote for their favourite track to be the official anthem of ASOT 550.

TOURDATES ASOT 550, March 2012: 3rd March A STATE OF TRANCE 550 – Belgrade, Serbia 7th March A STATE OF TRANCE 550 – Moscow, Russia 10th March A STATE OF TRANCE 550 – Kiev, Ukraine 17th March A STATE OF TRANCE 550 – Los Angeles, USA (as part of Beyond Wonderland) 25th March A STATE OF TRANCE 550 – Miami, USA 31st March A STATE OF TRANCE 550 – Den Bosch, The Netherlands For more info and tickets, as well as the full line-up of the Dutch ASOT 550 show, check www.astateoftrance.com.

Also all producers send in your original tracks by December 8th for a chance to be the ASOT 550 Anthem. http://www.astateoftrance.com/anthemcontest/

Seems everyone is rushing to get their live shows announced with some creative way of doing a video show to hide the fact that a one-man band just physically cannot be playing all of the instruments in a song live. With a few exceptions there haven’t really been many Electronic Musicians that have put on good live shows, and the word “live” is generally used to indicate that the artist may be triggering patterns or muting and unmuting tracks on the fly but generally not actually playing any instruments live. Personally I have nothing against this, what else can really be expected of one person? One man standing in front a few pieces of equipment, generally with a laptop in tow, doing a “live” show seems to generate less excitement than a DJ behind a pair of decks playing other people’s music.

The Solution
Stand in front of some mysterious piece of gear with lots of really cool looking synchronized 3D graphics and flashing lights to distract and hypnotize the crowd while bobbing your head to the music and moving your hands around like a conductor pushing buttons and occasionally pointing to the space above the crowd.

Underworld has always been one of the top Electronic Dance Music acts to put on a great live show. They always had the visuals provided by Tomato and an energetic vocalist jumping around the stage with a guitar.

Daft Punk pretty much set the stage for the current formula being used by many artists in the Electronic Music world with their Pyramid of lights and visuals. They also didn’t really play an instruments live it was more like they were tour guides through a mash-up of their entire discography. Entertaining, no doubt.

Etienne de Crecy did in next with his Visual Cube, taking the same formula as Daft Punk and the anonymous equipment in front of him. Etienne recently released a compilation available on Dim Mak Records called Beats n’ Cubes which contains some of the music from his show.

Then came Amon Tobin with Isam and the bar was raised. Incorporating perfectly synced 3D visuals projected onto a stack of boxes, Amon and his team created a show that has left people with their jaws on the floor. He’s still touring if you (more…)

A new Deadmau5 album, “For Lack Of A Better Name”, releases Sept. 22 via Ultra Records.

Fall Tour Dates to support the album:
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The Prodigy released their fifth album ‘Invaders Must Die’ on 2nd March.

The title track comes with a video directed by Paul Dougdale and starring actor and director Noel Clarke.

The Prodigy recently showcased the new material with UK dates and are set to head out on a full arena tour in April in the UK and May in the US.

04/05 – Cardiff International Arena
04/06 – Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
04/07 – Glasgow SECC
04/09 – Birmingham NIA
04/10 – Manchester MEN Arena
04/11 – Nottingham Trent FM Arena
04/13 – Sheffield Arena
04/14 Brighton Centre
04/16 London Wembley Arena
04/17 London Wembley Arena

05/18 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
05/19 – Electric City – Philadelphia, PA
05/20 – House of Blues – Boston, MA
05/22 – The Filmore – Detroit, MI
05/23 – Congress Theater – Chicago, IL
05/26 – The Grove – Anaheim, CA
05/27 – Hollywood Paladium – Los Angeles, CA
05/28 – Warfield Theatre – San Francisco, CA
05/30 – WAMU Theatre – Seattle, WA