Sound check: Tiesto is the King of Trance

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Raising the roof: DJ Tiësto performing at the O2 Arena

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After the super-club peak of the mid-Nineties, dance music never really died in the UK — it just became more of a specialist interest, going from the musical equivalent of football to, say, darts. This week, however, there are four dance singles in the Top 10 and Britain is clubbing crazy once again. Though the man leading the charge is far from a household name over here, Dutch DJ Tiësto is a global superstar.

Tonight Tiësto, real name Tijs Verwest, will mix trance and other electronic music in front of 25,000 people in Hackney's Victoria Park, only his third London headlining appearance after sets at Brixton Academy in 2006 and the O2 Arena last year.

A show of this scale is no giant leap for the only man to be named the world' s number one DJ three years running in DJ magazine's influential annual poll of clubbers. He first played a stadium show in 2003 in Arnhem, Holland, and in 2004 became the only DJ ever to play an Olympics opening ceremony, watched by five billion people as he accompanied the athletes' parade in Athens. He was made an Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau, a Dutch OBE.

When we speak he is in Majorca, about to DJ to 4,000 clubbers before heading to a Romanian dance festival, then his weekly residency in front of 10,000 people at Privilege in Ibiza, the biggest nightclub in the world, before touching down in London in his private jet. As if he didn't have enough of a golden touch, he also promises sunshine for Hackney: “They call me the good weather DJ,” he tells me. “I'm pretty lucky with it.”

The show will be quite a sight, far more of a spectacle than one man playing CDs. There'll be pyrotechnics and dazzling videos on giant screens, and just like a band airing their greatest hits, Tiësto will be wheeling out his Power Mix. “It's a solid hour of all my biggest anthems. But I'll be playing for five hours. I play such a range of music now that I need at least that long.”

Tiësto is known as the king of trance, dance music's most melodic strain, full of big, echoing synth riffs and often dreamy female vocals. (The Big Brother theme tune, by Paul Oakenfold, is a famous example of the sound at its most frantic.) He's been attacked by his rivals for being a bit cheesy, but claims to be changing his ways as he hits 40.

After playing the Olympics, even the day-to-day grind of a top DJ seemed a little dull. “I hit such a peak that in the following years it was hard to get myself motivated,” he says. “But last year I took some time off and went to live in LA, where I watched a lot of bands. I got so inspired, music felt fresh again and I got my energy back. Now I want to play every night, the longer the better.”

His belated interest in rock has led him to remix the kind of indie bands who wouldn't normally enter his orbit — Bloc Party, The Killers and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Kele Okereke from Bloc Party looks likely to sing on Tiësto's next album of his own music, due in October. “His voice is so distinctive, it goes through your bones.”

The purists might complain, but to the rest of us Tiësto's world is now more accessible than ever. “A couple of years ago I felt stuck in one sound. Now people will see how much I have changed. I hope they still dig it.”
www.tiesto.com

FIVE OTHER STADIUM TRANCERS

Armin Van Buuren
Another hugely popular Dutchman, Van Buuren's radio show, A State of Trance, is broadcast on Sunday nights by Kiss 100 and listened to by a worldwide audience of 27 million. He's beaten Tiësto to the number one spot in DJ magazine's top 100 list for two years running and is hoping to make it a hat-trick in 2009.
29 Aug, SW4 Festival, Clapham Common (0844 847 2467, www.southwestfour.com)
 
Paul van Dyk
The resident DJ at Cream in Ibiza throughout the summer, van Dyk is known for his politics and charity work having grown up in what was then East Berlin. He had a hit album of his own material, Out There and Back, in the UK in 2000.
30 Aug, Creamfields Festival, Cheshire (0870 534 4444, www.creamfields.com)
 
Paul Oakenfold
Now 45 and at the centre of clubbing's growth since the mid-Eighties, Oakenfold is comfortable in front of the world's biggest audiences having DJed on U2's Zoo TV tour, the main stage at Glastonbury and Madonna's latest tour. These days his main residency is in Las Vegas.
 
Ferry Corsten
Yes, another Dutchman, Corsten has produced music with Tiësto as the duo Gouryella, and had hits under his solo alias System F. He's played to crowds of up to 20,000 and remixed tracks by Public Enemy and Duran Duran.
30 Aug, Creamfields Festival, Cheshire (0870 534 4444, www.creamfields.com)
 
Markus Schulz
A German based in Miami, Schulz has helped to bring dance music belatedly to the US but like all the big DJs is also a true globetrotter. He's playing everywhere from Tel Aviv to Toronto over the next month.
29 Aug, SW4 Festival, Clapham Common (0844 847 2467, www.southwestfour.com) 

NEW ON THE NET
*Beck's official site is becoming a worthwhile stop on the information superhighway. Lately he's been publishing excerpts from a conversation with Tom Waits and launching his Record Club, in which he and his mates try to record a cover of an entire album in a day with no rehearsals. Hear the highlights from the first effort, The Velvet Underground & Nico, at www.beck.com/record_club.

*The Blur reunion is over already, according to Damon Albarn, who says: “I just can't do it any more.” That makes their recent Hyde Park concerts even more special, which is why the band are selling recordings of the gigs at http://blur.sandbag.uk.com. It's £15 for a double CD or £10 for a download.

*Laptop folk group Sweet Billy Pilgrim, currently slugging it out with Led Bib and The Invisible to be crowned the most obscure band on the Mercury Prize shortlist, will have their album re-released by major label EMI on Monday so people can actually find it in the shops. Those frightened of commitment can grab an MP3 of their track Truth Only Smiles for free at www.sweetbillypilgrim.com/

 

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