Not too much has been happening during the past week, but I made it along to Energetic Trance on Sunday, as planned. It was actually my first time at amate-raxi (for some reason I thought I’d been before..), and it’s ridiculously hard to find, through a little hidden/unmarked passageway. The dancefloor itself is tiny, too, and if there’s any air conditioning it doesn’t do anything useful…it was definitely too hot to stay for more than one set at a time.

Anyway, Guld’s set was really top quality, and the highlight of the event, for sure. A lot of the NRGetic Romancer crew were there, and the atmosphere tailed off after Guld and Nish finished their sets. Remo-con’s set in particular didn’t seem to get people going at all….

Despite saying beforehand that he might play slightly more mainstream style, our pre-set chat about Hase inspired Guld to use Almegiddo after all. From that point, things went crazy, with the new Requiem, Voices of Babylon, Solid State Scouter, and Betwixt & Between’s Airwave remix. He finished off with the NRGetic Romancer anthem, Plastic Enemy’s No House, giving Nish a tough act to follow.

I wanted to catch Buzzmasta and Yousuke in the lounge, and Buzzmasta especially played a perfect lounge set with non-stop reggae style downtempo tunes. I’ve heard that he occasionally plays rock and this sort of thing outside NRGetic Romancer, but it was a bit surreal to see him grooving away up in the DJ booth. Yousuke started off with downtempo grooves too, but eventually went into banging drum and bass. As a lot of the NRgetic Romancer crowd had escaped up to the lounge after Guld’s set, this went down pretty well.

As for the other DJs, I caught most of StripE’s live PA, and it featured some cracking melodic hard trance tracks, including Fighting for Freedom, of course. He only played for 30minutes, which was a shame. Munetica finished off the night with yet more hard trance – one set per night is probably enough for me, to be honest. There were some good tunes though, and he made my night by playing Alanamra as the encore tune at the end of his set. He might have pitched it down though, or else the original 160bpm feels even slower than I remember it (I always play it between 170 and 175…I know, I know, 175 is a bit too fast). It was like dancing underwater or something, but still as amazing as always to hear it.

A very good event, then, and if you like your hard trance it would pretty much be the best you could hope for in Japan. Guld is playing next at Funeral in Nagoya, before the next NRGetic Romancer on April 18th.