Aside from the likely undersell, a much greater anomaly that took place during Dreamstate SoCal 2016 makes for a telling case study on the state of trance music at large.
Over both days of the event, The Sequence played host to purveyors of the genre’s more subversive styles – namely psytrance and hard trance artists like Neelix, Coming Soon!!! and Ace Ventura. The stage, which was housed in the NOS Events Center’s Citrus building, was markedly more crowded than any other from the early hours of the first evening.
Shortly before Vini Vici’s set on the second, it hit capacity and security guards were instructed to turn eager attendees away at the door. The breakdown lasted through most of Ace Ventura’s set – even though he boasts a significantly more underground following than the act he preceded. Interestingly enough, in future installments of the festival Vini Vici would arguably be better suited for a slot on the main stage.
After superstar DJ/producers like Giuseppe Ottaviani and Solarstone (who themselves closed out The Vision stage as PureNRG on the first evening) pushed for a renaissance of classic trance styles that they termed “the pure trance movement” a number of years ago, Dreamstate felt to many like the physical manifestation of their vision.
What remained uncertain a year ago was what direction the movement would take in the years to follow. The answer, plainly and simply, is psytrance.
Who are the trance family’s newest additions? They’re the sort of young adults who got into dubstep five years ago – or techno the year before last. They’re fans too dedicated to let the main stage define their musical identity for long, but still green enough that they need deafening synth squelches and bone-rattling bass kicks to hold their attention. Honestly, I’d be lying if I said that the sound system at The Sequence alone didn’t make make a pretty compelling case for the subgenre; most who stood in front of it would undoubtedly attest that they’ve never experienced trance that way at any other previous event.
Even the year-to-year increase in attendance at the unofficial after party hinted at an impending psytrance explosion. Last year when I found my way to The Elks Lodge after the event (in a part of San Bernardino where “the people will steal your shoes,” as my Uber driver told me), the crowd had been tragically sparse. This year, the event – which was branded R.E.M. State – featured DJs who played a far less accessible version of the genre than could be heard at the festival itself, but managed to fill the space impressively all the same.
Last year I wrote that Dreamstate was “a new beginning for trance,” and I stand by that now more than ever. Even though a subset of the style characterized by a darker, more primal ethos has clearly emerged as a dominant trend, what took place at Dreamstate SoCal 2016 proved that the genre as a whole still has ample room to grow and evolve… that is, as long as Insomniac relocates The Sequence to a building at least as big as Valencia next year.
No matter where things go from here, one thing has remained the same: Setbacks aside, Dreamstate SoCal’s organizers succeeded in curating an environment that embodied the very essence of trance with integrity and attention to detail. Even if electronic music fans worldwide hadn’t come to call the trance destination home as quickly as they did, plenty would surely keep showing up just to see what happens next.
Photo Credits: Jake West, Oh Dag Yo