Relieve A Night Of Intense Emotion At Armin Only

Armin Only Intense Johannesburg  South Africa [Review]

Emotion running high with double meaning, just another day to keep it calm within. But I can't find a way to fight this shadow dreaming. We're always waiting for the night. Never lost cause we can go where the light shines brightest. We're always waiting for the night. So come with us and we can relive Armin Only Intense South Africa, Johannesburg together.

Growing up we used to spend hours on YouTube watching videos of trance events. When Armin van Buuren held the first Armin Only Imagine we remember watching the videos and wondering when we will get to experience an event on such a scale. 6 hours of Armin Only with live performances from singers, who wouldn’t want to experience this? Armin van Buuren was the first DJ we experienced live with the Godskitchen Boombox and yes he popped our partying cherry and set the benchmark for all the other events we attended. We then got to experience the master for a second time when he held his ASOT 500 celebration in Johannesburg; all that was left now was to experience an Armin Only. With the release of the Intense album, it was a well-known fact that Armin would do a world tour of Intense shows and we were hoping Johannesburg was one of the stops.

Fast forward to the 14^th June a date that will be remembered forever in the books of partying history in South Africa. The day Armin Only Intense landed in Johannesburg.  3^rd time seeing Armin van Buuren and as the saying goes 3^rd time’s a charm, never has there been a more fitting saying. A night of bliss a night of awe and most of all a night of never ending memories.

The hype to the event promised for it to be a night of a magic. A 6 hours set by Armin Van Buuren, including stunning live performances, dancing acts and top-notch technical effects that have never been used in EDM before. According to Armin van Buuren, Intense embraces more genres than any of his other albums. "It contains cross-overs from progressive to trance and from classical music to rock”. The incorporation of live instruments in the show made it unique and unlike any other “rave” you have attended before.

The spectacular kicked of with a 45 minute warm up performance by Armin van Buuren. His warm up set included an array of chill out ambient tracks working its way up into the more progressive. A few stand out tracks from the warm up set include a mash up of Emma Hewitt Forever In Our Hearts with Andrew Bayer’s Once Upon a Lydian, the new Cosmic Gate and Eric Luminaire's vocal banger Falling Back and Arty’s smashing remix of London Grammars – Hey Now.   The main show kicked of with a brilliant live performance from Fiora of her and Armin van Buuren’s vocal hit Waiting for the Night. As the show progressed attendees were treated to an assembly of spellbinding visuals, intense acrobatics and out of this world dance moves by dancers who provided a photographic transportation into each track played. Armin’s set was a mix of older and newer records, keeping it predominantly trance but tucking in some “big room” bangers for the masses. The crowd was entertained by live performances by Laura Jansen, Lauren Evans, and Cindy Alma.

Some highlights of the show  for us personally was when Armin played a mashup of Gareth Emery’s U and Concrete Angel, Orjan Nilsen and Cosmic Gate’s – Fair Game and of course the old school trance classics like Shivers, Communication and Serenity which was performed live by Laura Jensen.  A nice touch to the show was the incorporation of tracks of Armin’s prior albums Mirage and Imagine.  A touching moment was witnessing Armin with his brother Eller on stage while Eller delivered a beautiful guitar rendition of One Republic’s- If I Loose Myself.  Another stand out moment was when Richard Bedford wooed the crowed with his beautiful interpretation of Van Velzen’s Broken Tonight.

Before the end of the night attendees were treated to a very special one hour vinyl set by the master himself. This was the biggest highlight of the night. To hear tracks we grew up listening to being played live by one of the world’s number one DJ ‘s on vinyl is an hour that will forever be inked in our memory. Finally, the night ended off with an Armin classic Burned with Desire.

The only downside of the event for us was being media it would have been nice to be treated to VIP tickets. Just been given GA tickets restricted us from capturing the whole spectacular in its entirety. This included getting a comprehensive view of the stage.

Recovering from an epic party is pretty much the same as trying to recover from jetlag. Safe to say we still suffering jetlag from our Armin Only Trip three weekends ago. All in all Armin Only Intense is an event with intense and brilliant production. There was also definitely no shortage of C02 cannons, confetti, strobe lights, lasers and pyros.

Thank you to PR Work for the media tickets