Paul Van Dyk/Sasha
Los Angeles, CA, Coliseum Gardens
December 31, 2001

The last song I recognized of 2001 was Future Sound of London's "Papa New Guinea".

The first song in 2002 that I knew was a remix of Radiohead's "Everything In It's Right Place".

Yeah, you should read on...

There were two shows that night. One was Giant Village with Sasha and Paul Van Dyk and that was outside in the "gardens" which was more like a big parking lot. The other event was inside the Sports Arena and that was called Together As One with Sandra Collins and Derek Carter. Getting inside was really annoying, the security took away just about everything you were carrying including lighters. So all the smokers were pretty pissed off about that. It took about 30 to 40 minutes from arriving at the event to get inside, I've been in worse lines so this wasn't that bad.

The stage was inside this huge tent that looked like it was cut in half. Just imagine one half of airplane hanger and you're close to what it looked like. This was a convenient setup because there was no crowding to get inside or out. There was nothing really special about the light show, five screens, and a bunch of lights. Don't get me wrong, it looked cool, it was just pretty standard "rave" lights.

Sasha took the stage around 10 or 10:30 and opened his set with a Bjork remix. It wasn't a great mix but my brother assured me, "Don't worry man, he's going to be here until 2am, so give him time." As usual I didn't recognize 95% of the material so I can't give you a set list. It was pretty amazing though and I was bouncing off the walls when he threw down the FSOL and Radiohead tracks. Sasha closed out his set with his own track, "Xpander".

I'm not sure who spun between Sasha and Paul Van Dyk, between 2 and 2:30am, it doesn't matter as I took off to the Together As One event where Derek Carter was still spinning. His beats were rockin' but the place was filled with smoke and it was like ninety degrees in there so I didn't stay long.

Paul Van Dyk went on around 2:30 am and played several tracks from his Out There And Back disc. I moved into the middle of the tent where the sound was much better and enjoyed his one and a half hour set from there. That was the worse thing about the entire evening, it only went on until 4am! They did advertise an "after hours" event (I found out later that Sasha was there) but I was tired enough to just go home.