Gareth Emery showed NYC trance fans what he is made of this New Year’s Eve.
Gareth Emery brought the fire this New Year’s Eve with his new show concept, openXclose! This set brought thousands of trance fans on the musical journey of their lives. It was 7 hours of pure bliss and we couldn’t have asked for more from this legend.
Trance DJ and producer, Gareth Emery has always had a passion for the scene and this truly showed throughout the full seven hour duration of his set. As one of the pioneers of the trance scene, Gareth has a grown an immense amount of love and adoration for his fans — this lead to his idea of performing an open to close set.
Gareth, among many other artists, is known to play festivals and club sets, but they aren’t able to show their true artistic abilities with the time constraints they are bound to at these types of events. So what better way to show his range of talent than to play a seven hour set; being able to play those deep, dark, and progressive sounds, but also having the ability to get the crowd seven-hour moving with trance bangers and electronic hits.
Midnight came, as did the new year and we were all singing and cheering to the sounds of Saving Light, which was also the ASOT Tune of the Year in 2017. This song brought hugs and kisses, cheers and tears, but mostly it rang in the new year. Following the excitement of dancing into 2019, Ashley Wallbridge joined Gareth on the decks. Together they played a ton of tracks off their upcoming album as well as some classics that had trance enthusiasts’ jaws on the floor.
Trance legend, Gareth Emery did not come alone…
Ashley wasn’t the only one Gareth brought along to join him on New Year’s Eve; he also brought along two other guest performers that only added to the hype of this long awaited performance. Jonathan Mendelsohn was the first of the two to jump on stage with Gareth. His vocals played on the crowd’s heart strings and had everyone jumping around with their hands in the air.
Next on the stage was one of my all time favorite trance vocalists, Emma Hewitt. Her voice is like that of an angel. Her live performance brought tears to my eyes and I was certainly not the only one. I still have a vivid memory of the moment she sang the chorus of Be Your Sound and I’m starting to get those butterflies in my stomach again just thinking about that moment in the night. She’s definitely a vocal performance you need to hear live.
New York City proved that it is the city that doesn’t sleep.
It’s 2:30am and the crowd is still going strong. The guest performers have completed their sets and now it’s just Gareth Emery and his fans. Gareth really went off in the last hour and a half. The beats hit harder, the BPMs got faster, and the crowd jumped higher. I haven’t seen a venue stay this packed so late into the night before and not a soul had the intent of leaving any time soon. But eventually, like all good things — the set had to come to an end. The open finally crXssed over to close and just like that, it was over.
I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end 2018 and begin 2019. Nothing feels better than being surrounded by close friends and good music. I hope everyone reading this also had an amazing New Year’s celebration and I hope that you all achieve the goals you’ve set forth for yourselves. And I hope some of those goals are to attend more festivals and shows this year! Catch you on the dance floor and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Feature Photo | Rukes.com
