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Ahh, Europe. They seem so much like us -- many people there speak our language, they wear similar clothes, they like The Strokes... They aren't quite as fat as us, generally speaking, but with a more aggressive McDonalds marketing push, they could be. Still, there are moments when you really realize how culturally distant we've become. Jerry Lewis, Monarch of the Glen, Doing It (and its monstrous American made for TV adaptation), et cetera. You get a hell of a lot of those moments on Tiësto in Concert II (184 of them, to be precise). The fervor with which the crowd responds to the announcer's absurdly melodramatic build-up as Tiësto climbs on stage doesn't seem to really surprise them. The booming voice in the clouds barely stops short of declaring this Euro DJ the new, improved Jesus Christ, and it's clear that the crowd would be willing to go that far if he would. They love this guy. After struggling to sit through all three hours of this concert DVD, you're likely to wonder why.
It's not that he's awful, exactly; it's that he's a trance DJ. Now, as a rule, we don't play favorites with genres, so if Tiësto was a purveyor of top-quality trance electronica, we'd tell you that, and you would know, and you could consider purchasing the DVD. But he's not. He spins the exact same trance music you could hear in any club in any first world country. He drops a few ridiculously monotonous loops that could have been synthesized in the '80s, for all you can tell, then rests on his laurels for a moment before mixing in a new, ludicrously monotonous loop. Resolving this with the commonly held belief among Europeans that our boy Tiësto is "The Best DJ in The World" is difficult to say the least.
But if there's one thing Tiësto in Concert II shows us that we still have in common with our neighbors across the sea, it's the belief that watching a guy spin trance music is fucking boring as hell. The methods Tiësto and his handlers utilize in their attempts to overcome this obstacle are also pretty much what you would expect from Americans: a hell of a lot of lasers, fog, spot lights, giant monitors, fireworks, guest stars, people in ridiculous costumes, and... the man himself and his ridiculous little dance motions.
However, they decided that all that nonsense wasn't quite enough, and honestly, they were probably right. Tiësto's music is that thoroughly unspectacular. So as the fireworks burst, as the lasers lance through the fog, as Tiësto waves his hands around like an injured seal, the DVD cuts rapidly from one view to another in a small legion of cameras. The vast majority of shots last two seconds. You can count them. After the first hour of seeing something new every two seconds, that may be the only way to stay sane. If you have problems with motion sickness, it may be something of an issue.
A standard sequence goes like this: two seconds of panning across the crowd, who are all apparently having the time of their lives. One second of a person's hand waving around in the air. Half a second of another. Half a second of another. Two seconds of Tiësto sweating and smiling at us as he tries to look busy at the mixing board. A second of fireworks spraying from somewhere -- we can't tell where, because the camera work is shoddy; presumably near the stage. Then we check back with Tiësto. He's leafing through some CDs. Two seconds later, we're watching the same thing from another viewpoint. A second later, we see it from another.
Yes, you had damn well better believe this gets monotonous over the course of three hours.
Tiësto's special guests, such as the Bulgarian Children of Orpheus choir, Aqualung's Matt Hales and violinist DJ Mason, don't help much. They add a little much-needed textural variety, but honestly, Hales isn't much of a singer and Mason's work on the violin doesn't stand out. The Bulgarian choir sings for a while and then leaves.
You can really smell the desperation when the circus performers come out. This part doesn't even make sense. A few people in really weird costumes stand around the DJ and sort of flap these wing things, see, while some gymnasts climb up into the heights of the arena and sort of hang there, contorting their bodies, swinging around a little. When we check back on The World's Greatest DJ, he's still doing the same old thing. The thematic link between mediocre trance and people in silly outfits is difficult, if not impossible, to detect. Then they leave and he makes some more mediocre trance.
Maybe the editing, which is unforgivably distracting, is the problem. Maybe that explains why the people in this video look like they're having such a good time, while we at home can only suffer. Maybe sound is just plain different in Europe. But there has to be an explanation for this disparity, doesn't there? Someone needs to explain how The Greatest DJ In the World turned out to be so very, very boring.
-- Mike Meginnis
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