We made our way down to Czar Bar around 10:30, catching the last half of Blu Jemz‘ techier-than-expected set.  I was a bit surprised by the amount of squiggly basslines and 4×4 beats he was playing, as most of my exposure to his music has been of the more hiphop-driven variety.  The semi-smallish crowd seemed into it, but for what I was able to hear, it seemed as if there was no consistent groove until the last few tracks of his set.

Zombie Disco Squad was up next.  DJ’ing as a duo, they kept on the tech-heavy house sound, littered with intermittent breakbeats.  To my ears, the loss of musical texture brought on by both the over-extended soundsystem and jacked-up bpms transformed the set into something reminiscent of the minimal-leaning prog house sets from Roland on the back deck of the Hurricane, two-for-one Coronas in hand.  While those were great nights, I’m not so sure how I felt about experiencing it again, at least musically, a decade later.  A good portion of their set wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a pitched-up Hope b-side dub or something similar.   There was quite a lot of effects abuse, and by the end of their set, there was very little I could call soulful or funky about what they played, although there were quite a few moments just begging to break through.  The crowd seemed to be into it for the most part, although the constant breaks via phaser, flanger, beat repeat, and delay on just about every mix appeared to make things a little confusing for quite a few of them.

One-half of Nero, Joseph Ray, I believe, was in tonight for this gig, and as soon as the first drop hit at levels even higher than Zombie Disco Squad had been able to hit, most of the kids in the place came running to the front with their hands in the air.  Mostly mid-range wobblers turned way up, the Czar Bar crowd ate it up, not surprisingly.  While this is not my preferred style of the sound, it seems to hit a resonant chord with both the hesher and the hiphop crowd, which I guess is what Anthrax and Public Enemy intended oh so long ago.  The few tracks we heard from Nero’s set were missing the genuine urban menace that seems to separate the men from the boys of the genre.

We headed out a few tracks into the set, so I’m not sure whether 12th Planet went on later or if he had already played prior to us arriving.  For a free event, we came away feeling more or less indifferent.  I can say I appreciate Scion’s attempts to bring bigger name acts to a smaller venue like the Czar Bar, but I have yet to walk away from one of their events excited about what I heard.  There’s very little going on at the event beyond the RSVP-for-entry, a couple of banners, and a truck out front to signify the corporate interest.  Sadly then, it is down to the music the selected acts choose to play, all of which seemed to have a commercial sheen to it that is hard to dismiss.

My friend Zach is a big BT fan, something about musicianship or something. With the full understanding of what we were getting ourselves into, with more than enough years of experience to handle whatever this party was going to throw at us, we made our way into the Midland around 9:30.

The only security was the Midland employee who took my ticket, and with that we walked into 2002.

I am going to break it down like this: all the ladies looked good, the guys were having a good time, and it appeared everything ran smoothly as far as the event was concerned.

We found three rooms outside of the main floor. The basement room had carpet, but hey whatever. Shin splints suck but dancing is dancing. I heard a few minutes of jungle down here.

The front bar attachment to the Midland also had a setup. We caught a little bit of Shadowrunner’s set.

The uppermost tier of the Midland was visually impressive, and the small area tucked away behind the large circular bar would be ideal for some deep house around 6AM. I thought I caught someone saying the Pitch weekly djs were in this room, but like every other room, there were no listed set times or anything.

Which, honestly didn’t matter, because outside of the jungle I mentioned, every room was essentially the exact same sound as the main room for about six hours straight. All of the side rooms were comfortable or full every time we went through, and the bars seemed to be consistently busy.

That being said, I wonder how a night like this stacks against REO Speedwagon for the staff of the Midland. The ravers of Global Dance Festival 2010 are not the ravers of high desert parties as far as concern for environmental impact goes, and I’m sure the site of a few hundred kids cuddle-puddling in the main lobby was not what most of them expected.

The main floor was a professional exhibition – lasers, lcd screens, go-go dancers, and lights. The sound was surprisingly good for the most part, given that every performer sounded as if they were riding the reds as hard as they could. Every mix followed a pattern of digitally-queued beats generally off by a measure or two being played as loudly as possibly over the breakdown of the previous track. Generally, as this splinter of progressive hous/trance has done seemingly since its break from the likes of Platipus or Rising High oh so many years ago, there would be about a minute or so of red-line speaker-busting music, then another 30 seconds or more of extended breakdown, repeated again and again for about six hours.

BT, I am told, played some mix of Darude’s “Sandstorm” at the peak of his set. Everyone recognized it immediately – I thought I had spotted it as well, but it wasn’t Josh Wink’s “Are You There”, which I’m not sure would have been better, but definitely more unexpected.

Paul Van Dyk, in true rock show fashion, had his levels boosted even higher than Transeau’s within the first eight beats. There was a lot more fist-pumping and, ultimately, at the end of the night, I sort of wondered if someone was going to pass a plate around for donations.

If that front bar area would have had a deep house or techno dj, or even a good eclectic selector, that would have been the party of the night. If it would have been back in that top room, mmmmm.

We left around 1 or so I think, a few songs into Paul Van Dyk’s set. The same girl who took my ticket gave me a calendar flyer for the venue on my way out.

I tried to imagine a Contakt installation or a MWXMW event at the Midland. With the right team behind the event, I could definitely see it happening, though I think the logistics of the building might ultimately get in the way of the overall success of the night. If this many kids show up for Global Dance Festival 2010 Kansas City, I can only imagine what the turnout for current, relevant artists – and the effect it would have on the city – would be.