Ferry Corsten Brings Full On To The US

Posted by Middy on September 8, 2012

The inaugural Full On on this side of the Atlantic capped the first night of the 4th edition of Electric Zoo with a resounding bang. Full On was first started in 2007 back in Ferry Corsten’s home country of the Netherlands and has turned into one of the biggest trance events in the world. The night was full of back-to-back sets and great individual performances.

Roseland Ballroom set the perfect scene for the night, as tired festival goers began streaming in between 11:30 and midnight to catch the tail-end of rising American trance asset Audien, who has been tagged by super trio Above & Beyond as a name to watch. Full On started at 11pm with Audien, which was definitely a small thing I would have changed since Electric Zoo did not end until 11 pm and the inevitable backup of getting tens of thousands of people off of an island caused many people to be very late for Audien’s set. Next year I would advise Made Event to start the afterparties at 11:30, with doors at 11, to give people at Electric Zoo enough time to get down to the afterparty they paid a decent amount of money for.

Once Audien was done getting the crowd going, British DJ/trance-turned-progressive-house producer Michael Woods hit the decks. His style was not totally out of place in the night, though it was different from the overall tenor of the trance theme. His high energy progressive tracks excited the crowd, and he launched salvo after salvo of hard hitting songs from his expansive discography that has seen many stellar additions recently. Michael Woods was joined by Polina who sang the track “Goodbye,” which became a theme of the evening — live vocalists. He was then joined by Ferry Corsten, the man of the evening, for some intriguing back-to-back that combined some of the more progressive tracks in Ferry’s arsenal. With this as a starting point, there was a clear progression in Ferry Corsten’s sound during the night. Continue on to see how the rest of the night went.

Ferry Corsten finished off his B2B with Michael Woods and moved into his own set, where he showcased his own talents and had fun playing well-loved tracks from WKND such as “Live Forever” and “Not Coming Down,” and treated the crowd to some of his older classics like “Fire” and “Punk.” New York native Betsie Larkin joined him to sing “Not Coming Down,” which became a highlight of the night; she commanded the stage and stole the hearts of the crowd.

Ferry Corsten was then joined by resurgent duo Gabriel & Dresden to do a B2B set and then let them finish off the night. From that point on, the fans who had stuck it out to this point at 3 in the morning truly got what they came for, with trance hit after trance hit that would leave any reveler salivating. They traded blows on the decks, going back and forth as Josh Gabriel got their main set ready and Dave Dresden took care of the B2B. The atmosphere in the booth was very laid back as everyone was having a fantastic time at this point in the night, evidenced by the empty solo cups on the ground in the booth and the almost empty bottle of Goose on ice.

Ferry Corsten left the duties of finishing off the crowd to Gabriel & Dresden around 3:45. They not only gave the crowd their vast array of genre blending mashups, but also some classics from the vault that put smiles on all of the faces of those who have loved Gabriel & Dresden since the early 2000s. It was the perfect way to finish off the evening: uplifting trance that sent the festival goers off into the late New York streets full of anticipation to get up in a few hours to start it all again for Day Two.