Sander Van Doorn did not waste any time at the ASOT 550 stage, and started playing the best set that I heard all week as soon as Cosmic Gate was done. The track list was fantastic and the mixing was extraordinary. Sander Van Doorn mixed current favorites with unreleased singles and lesser-known tracks at an incredibly fast pace: he played over twenty tracks in one hour. His set was characterized by a unique contrast of progressive house and trance-style melodies with thick and bass heavy electro-house drops. I had been slightly disappointed by the overall quality of sets at Ultra, and Sander Van Doorn’s performance was one of the few that exceeded my expectations. I left the set thinking “Wow, why isn’t he headlining?”
The act began with Sander Van Doorn’s new track, “Inside,” accompanied with live vocals from the lovely Mayaeni. The unforgettably emotional track had the entire crowd hooked and in a state of trance from the start; it was one of the highlights of my week.
Sander Van Doorn then mixed in “Twenty Nine” by Danny Howard and quickly switched to “Troll,” a monster that managed to make entire crowds go nuts many times over the weekend. After the heavy drop, Sander lightened things up with a euphoric mashup of “Sweet Disposition” and Jacob van Hage’s “On Stage.”
The melody of “Chasin” was immediately recognizable, and as soon as the bass kicked, Sander had everyone in the tent bouncing up and down with their hands in the air. Things just kept getting more exciting as Sander Van Doorn teased the “Alcoholic” acapella before dropping the earth shattering “Bazinga” alongside an explosion of confetti and discharge of carbon dioxide. The acid synths and bass in the build up were enough to get people dancing, and everyone was blindsided by a heavy Dutch-inspired drop.
Sander then transitioned back to a progressive style, with “Drink To Get Drunk” followed by DubVision’s “All By Myself” and his remix of “Find Myself.” The rapid firing of progressive anthems with “The Legend,” a track that begins with a dreamy and lush instrumental and develops to an energetic synth line.
Forty-five minutes through his set, Sander Van Doorn paced things down with Ali Wilson’s remix of “Video Games” while Armin Van Buuren made a quick appearance via live broadcast on the LED panels.
The last fifteen minutes were absolutely outstanding. Sander closed a fantastic mix with five tracks that each made the crowd go insane. It all began with the Dutch bleeps from Bassjackers & Anger Dimas’ latest track, “RIA.” People were clapping along with the build up as Kryoman prepared to shoot out lasers and C02 in time for the thick drop.
Out of nowhere, notorious whistles arose alongside an emerging roar from the crowd as Sander Van Doorn’s legendary “Koko” was recognized. As the punchy synths grew louder and the bass dropped, the entire tent grew euphoric. Everyone was shouting along to the melody while jumping up and down with their hands in the air.
After hearing “Koko”, my friend Avi, who was initially reluctant to stay longer than twenty minutes, finally ran off to go listen to Knife Party at the Main Stage. Avi told me that as soon as he heard “Quasar” drop, he turned around and raged in the middle of the path, receiving approving looks from people walking.
Sander Van Doorn closed his amazing set with blissful and euphoric progressive house. He played his track “Eagles“ with “No More Serious Faces” followed by “In My Mind.” The euphoric melodies combined with emotional lyrics and uplifting drops were the perfect ending to this amazing set.
The track after Dubvision – All By Myself is the brand new collab from
Sander van Doorn & Julian Jordan. SvD on twitter:”Hey @ItsJulianJordan tested out our new collab @ultramusic
festival yesterday!! The crowd went insane!!” It’s obviously that track
because it’s not any of the others. Thumbs up so everyone can see
At the end he was playing Jacob Van Hage’s mashup “No More Serious Eagles” http://soundcloud.com/jacobvanhage/sander-van-doorn-adrian-lux-ft to download
I went to Sensation Belgium this month and without a doubt Van Doorn delivered the best set out of the 3 main shows.
Barely followed him before but these last two big performances have been absolutely outstanding like you said. He =’s shot up to my Top 5.
He headlined the ASOT event last year. Thats why.
Thanks for that wrap-up Paul! Totally insane set from Sander and no doubt Top 3 of Ultra. I arrived half way through Cosmic Gate and Sander just lifted me from this planet, seriously guys, wow!! But appreciation for Dash Berlin as well. Finest vocals, fitting just perfectly with the timing of his set. And last 20 minutes from Armin on ASOT stage were unbelievable!
maybe because he wasn’t even live, cdjs were not even plugged in. thats a whack dj by all means
I dunno that I agree with the idea that anyone aside from Armin “headlines” an ASOT event. At the Garuda party this year John O’Callaghan didn’t go on until probably 6am… if he was the last DJ up did that mean he “headlined”? The headline is the name at the top of the billing, drawing the biggest crowd… and for the forseeable future the ASOT headline reads A.V.B.
relax bro, before you start saying top this top that, you should really consider who u call a dj, he wasnt even live and was pretending he was mixing.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3123234392302&set=a.1014399192740.2002381.1007853322&type=1&theater
In 2011 Sander was playing at Sensation São Paulo. He was the last dj and the best definitely. But you know, Sensation has its rules. The end means the end. The crowd was like “pleaaaase, we want more”. Awesome. For me he’s the best actually. All his sets are fantastic. He never disappoint us.
thats cause all his sets are pre made
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3123234392302&set=a.1014399192740.2002381.1007853322&type=1&theater
cant see the pic ?!
another link?
These are my only tops of the day ;) And sure, we can also look at it that way but in that case I guess UMF is just the wrong place to go! Talking about the picks, the mix and the emotion brought to the floor I’m maintaining my view on Dash
http://cl.ly/300d202l220M2F3O0S2C
http://cl.ly/300d202l220M2F3O0S2C
I don’t really mind about that. The track selection was amazing anyway. Have you considered that he can load and play his tracks from an external device, like a mp3 player or even a pendrive? I don’t know about this mixer but I think it’s possible.
Sander’s sound has gone totally POP nowadays. He is playing really mainstream pop/electro house, trying to catch up with uprising electro house stars and climb the DJ charts. I mean, listen to his sets and productions 4-5 years ago…original sound and drive, tech house and tech trance at its best. And now what? Guetta-wana-be squicky cheapage…
I didn’t necessarily try to say that he should have headlined ASOT specifically, but I believe that he deserved to play one of the later sets of the night, and I preferred his set than most of the main stage headliners
Dude, get your facts straight.
That’s a DJM-900 Nexus. In the bottom righthand corner, you see a bunch of cables. Those go into the digital inputs.
Your little image there shows the analog inputs.
http://www.chemical-records.co.uk/stk_img_large/D/J/M/DJM900NEXUS-D.JPG
shut up
i was working there and i can assure you he was playing live… and the DJM 900 was connected as well as the dim 2000 next to it. if set lists are almost the same isn’t that normal if you have only 60 minutes to play you choose in advance what tracks your gonna play but you still mix them in live …. it just was a awesome set
Fuckk you Zya1200 you are a jealous son of a bitch. who the fuckk are you to say if it is live or not?
Zya1200 2 tries to spoil the article which was nicely written, but he can’t say shit about the music by Sander, it silences all comments.
Sander’s amazing¡¡¡ He’s the best¡¡¡