Every year the Easter long weekend is not only a time for family gatherings, but also the start of Spring events and festival season in Toronto. This year, Ink Events kicked things off with Decadence 2013 . If you are familiar with The Guvernmentcomplex, then you know exactly what a night like Decadence entails. Thousands of people gather inside the massive venue for an all-access event hosting multiple world famous DJs; there is nothing quite like it. I made sure to arrive by 11:00 pm, early enough, with a group of friends who made the trip down from all over Ontario, to avoid what I can only imagine became an enormous lineup as the night went on. When we got inside, Koolhaus was already fairly packed and Resident DJs Manzone & Strong were kicking the night off with their wildly popular opening sets warming the crowd up for a colossal night led by R3hab, Calvin Harris and Nicky Romero. Making my way to the main room inside the Guvernment, Mark Oliver was spinning his opening set preparing us for Cosmic Gate followed by the highly anticipated return of Dutch duo W&W. Although the main room was not yet as busy as Koolhaus, I knew within an hour it would be equally as crammed. For anyone who frequents The Guvernment you know all the good places to stand once it gets busy so we took our respective favourite places inside and warmed up with Mark Oliver. The vibes inside the main room were great – the excitement from everyone around was so prevalent that I couldn’t help but get even more excited myself for what the night was about to bring. As a big fan of Trance, Progressive and electro music, Cosmic Gate & W&W were my top choices to hear that night.
Source: Visualbass/The Guvernment
At midnight Cosmic Gate kicked off their set with Easy by Mat Zo & Porter Robinson, which surprised me a little as an opening set choice, but a good track nonetheless. I had no idea what to expect so I kept an open mind and let the music take me away. The German duo, best known for their Trance sounds, were emitting great energetic vibes that made it impossible not to smile and just keep dancing. Playing some classic Cosmic Gate favourites throughout their set, we heard the likes of Over the Rainbow, Be Your Sound, and a collaboration with Toronto’s Arnej, Sometimes They Come Back For More. We also heard the major classic Fire Wire, and of course I can’t forget the wildly anticipated track Exploration of Space. At one point during their set, the stage was lowered from its high position right down to crowd level where we all rushed in to get our pictures of Nic Chagall and DJ Bossi playing up close and personal. It’s always such a treat to see our favourite DJs close enough to touch and watch them doing what they do best; I had my fan girl moment when Nic touched my hand and winked at me before returning to the mixers. Closing off their three hour set with an amazing remix done by Cosmic Gate, they played Find Yourself by John O’ Callaghan & Sarah Howells and received a big thank you from the crowd with lots of applause. With no time to recover after three fast hours, it was time to move on to the next portion of the night.
Source: Visualbass/The Guvernment
At 3:00am the main room was noticeably more crowded with everyone excited to see W&W. Wasting no time at all, the duo kicked off their epic set with their own track Lift Off. Starting off with a banger like that, I knew we were headed into a set that was going to be really energetic from start to finish. Although not focused on purely Trance like some fans may have hoped, the Dutch duo delivered some of the best electro, progressive and trance tracks to get the jam-packed main room buzzing and moving about with crazy energy. Dropping banger after banger we heard W&W hits from last year, incuding Moscow and Invasion. Known for their successful remixes, they played a big selection of their remixes like: Waiting by Dash Berlin & Emma Hewitt, Clarity by Zedd & Foxes, and Armin Van Buuren’s newest track This Is What It Feels Like to showcase their unmatched skills for making these tracks almost their own in a special W&W kind of way. Not dropping the BPM for a second, we heard the newest Armin Van Buuren and W&W collaboration D#Fat and a personal favourite The Code collaborated with Ummet Ozcan. As if we weren’t sweaty and excited enough for a full two hours, they ended their set with three insane electro tracks: Slowdown by Showtek, Trigger by Marcel Woods and W&W, and finishing us off with Make The Crowd Go by Alvaro. Highly impressed, everyone gave W&W a huge show of appreciation, thus ending the lineup for the main room and making way for our talented Resident DJ Mark Oliver to close out yet another successful Decadence event. He kept to the sounds we had heard all night and continued to play some great Trance, Progressive and Electro house to keep the remainder of the troopers dancing until the bitter end.
As someone who has seen more than my fair share of shows inside The Guvernment complex and other venues all around, I was extremely impressed with Decadence 2013. Seeing Cosmic Gate for the first time left a great first impression and surely not the last, while seeing W&W for the second time around confirmed why I love their style of music. Everyone who came from seeing R3hab, Calvin Harris and Nicky Romero told me that I missed unreal sets by all of them making me wish I could have been in two rooms at the same time to see all the talent Ink Events had brought to us that night. If you missed Decadence 2013 not to worry, there will surely be more events like this coming our way – but make sure you don’t miss out on the next one, because nights like these carry memories to last a lifetime.
Adele is the owner of Tranceported. She manages and maintains the social media and the photo and video teams, and has been shooting our event photos since 2011. She has been a fan of Trance music since the mid-90s and started this website (formerly called EDM TOR) in 2012.
