My Personal Review of Sasha...

[Tortures Dionysos]

Ok... here it is... my personal review of Sasha in Dallas...

Jimmy Van M. starts off... and he was good... straight up progressive house... some parts of his set were fun... and I danced quite a bit.

But I was ready for Sasha... ready to hear what I heard in Colorado....

Time ticks by... the crowd just doesn't show up... there is NO ENERGY in the little bit of crowd that is there... I'm wondering why the hell Dallas won't come see Sasha (in Colorado he and Digweed PACKED a 6,000 person venue... and the tickets started at $40!).

Finally 1:00 comes up on us... and Sasha decides to hit the decks... I suppose he figured out that that was the best he was going to get crowd and energy wise...

Sasha spun a straight up progressive house set for 99% of the night (NOT progressive TRANCE like someone else said in another thread!). In CO he spun a lot more trance... so I was really disappointed.

The sound was really good... BUT WAY TOO LOUD! Some of the songs had these piercing highs... OUCH! Come around 2:00... I was getting restless... and I had to keep leaving the room to spare my ears.

The lighting was professionally done, and the colors were amazing... but the lack of lazer made the room seem rather empty. That was a bit disappointing... but oh well.

Sasha NEVER GRABBED me last night... in fact... I was down right BORED for most of his set... and I even thought, "I liked Jimmy Van M. Better"... and I think that's because Sasha never played any of his progressive trance tracks... and he didn't play all the cool tracks with layers of quirky sounds like I heard in CO.

BTW... I have never seen so many people SLEEPING at a party... and hell... come around 3:30... if I hadn't started promoting... I would have fallen asleep too!

End of story? I felt/feel really bad for building him up to Dallas... I should have known that he wouldn't perform an amazing set in Dallas. And honestly I can't blame him entirely.... the crowd was so small.. and the energy was never there... in fact... most people I saw seemed to be disinterested in Sasha... the person they paid so much money to see!

Oh well... now I know how good he and Digweed were in Colorado...

PS- It was good seeing all the dravers out that I saw... thanks for chatting with me and entertaining me during my bored moments...

[KING SIZE]

i am in total agreement with karen..

i cant see how in other threads you worship sasha's set and then kick jimmy to the curb.. here's how the night started.. jimmy and lee start out by playing melodic ass tracks.. not even dropping a beat.. just getting you warmed up for it all. they slowly progress and progress and drop grooving ass tracks.. they would drop harder tracks then chill back out at just the right time with a smooth ass track... i thought their track selection was perfect.. and then some of you go and call it montenous and boring.. WTF. also i thought the sound was turned up at just the right level but could have been a tiny bit louder for them. jimmy trainwrecked once.. but fixed it pretty damn fast.. and then people started cheering.. i guess they're clueless as to what happend. besides that i thought him and lee's set was dope as fuck. if ANYONES set was LACKING DEPTH.. it was sasha.. now i'll give him this his mixing was perfect.. BUT.. his hard ass songs lost me after the 1st 2 hours or so.. and the speakers were too loud for some of his tracks.. he had NO variation.. just steady dropping hard shit.. now some of you might have digged that.. and thats cool but i prefer to get taken on a ride. at the very end i was like.. damn when is he gonna slow the fuck down and and mellow his set out.. now for being paid the massive amounts that he is.. i would expect him at the least to do what jvm/lee did and progress upward and downward slowly and take you on a ride.. but at the end of one song at the end of the night he just stops the record. then he puts on a more peaceful track.. now i HEARD he was sick and not feeling well.. which might have explained his hard shit the whole night steadily.. but that got boring. i give my props to jvm and lee burridge. i thought jimmy and lee did a perfect job of PROGRESSING and getting it at the right level for sasha without overdoing it.. then sasha came on and started with the hard shit which was dope.. but got boring after NO CHANGE for the WHOLE time.

[thefncrow]

Things like this are the reason I so want to get out of Dallas. All night, whereever I looked, people drugged to hell, and uninterested. It takes a certain kind of person to get into progressive house, and this town doesn't contain many. The people who were at Jimmy Van M, and Tarantella and Redanka, are most of the exceptions to this rule. Me? I live, sleep, eat, and breathe progressive house. I listen to lots and lots of stuff, but progressive house is what I enjoy most. Sasha/Van M/Burridge did not disappoint me whatsoever. JVM kicked ass at Red Jacket, and I HOPE that the Dallas folk haven't given Burridge such an impression that he won't be back. That man goes HARD, and getting him or Craig Richards to come over for a show would be great. I get this bad feeling that his first visit to Dallas may be his last for a long time.

Sasha, I really want him back. Get him in a club and charge up the wazoo, I don't care. Hell, I've long said, $40 for tickets was good. First, its not bad for what you're getting, and the higher the price, the more people who are just coming to see anyone that get weeded out. Those that REALLY REALLY REALLY want to see Sasha would pay it, and it'd keep the "hey theres a rave at bronco, grab your binkie and we're out!" crowd away. Hey, I'm up for $100 for Sasha at Red Jacket, if it'll keep the non-fans away.

I walked away for a bit during the beginning of Sasha, not angry at Sasha, or Burridge, or Van M, but the fucking e-tards who were all over. Dallas seriously needs to try to clean this shit up. Get some security that actually cares when they see someone rolling their ass off.

Sasha and the rest of them blew me away. I know this wasn't one of Sasha's top tier sets, but you know, I don't really care. I only had a mediocre time, though, because of the crowd.

Dallas needs to fucking grow up.

EDIT: Silentgrooves, when he stopped the remix of Everything In Its Right Place, its because he thought he was going to have to stop. One of the stage members came up after he stopped it and told him he could play one more track. So he grabbed another record and threw it on.

Crow

[KING SIZE]

crow.. i know you didnt intend for it to be interpreted like that i hope. but neither karen or i was drugged up or uninterested.. and i love prog. house.. so i feel what your sayin. jimmys performance at the r.j. was amazing as was this time.. but i think the crowd might have been more into it if sasha's set was more varied and not so bland... and if they did tell him he had to stop then that furthers my point that he had no intention of changing up his set.

wtf do you mean grow up. are we not entitled to an opinion of the set. i found both the set and the crowd rather mundane. it just didnt make me want to get up and dance or anything. oh well.
i just really dont understand what "needing to grow up" has to do anything.
are you on some sort of higher intellect or something?
-Michael
(harsh reality crew)

[thefncrow]

First off, Harsh Reality, I'm not talking about most of the people on this board. I'm talking about the fucking e-tards that spread throughout the bronco bowl. Would I like everyone to take an interest in prog house? Well, yeah, but I'm not demanding it, its not for all. My grow up comment is directed towards the drugged up morons that seemed to be all around me all night. Still, I do maintain that you should know what you're getting into before you go into a set, especially if its $40, a price most of this board complained about.

And silentgrooves, no, that was not directed towards you and karen. You didn't like it, your opinion. I'm not insinuating you were drugged up. I had people coming up to me asking who was on. They've just been staring at the giant screens, up against the front rail so its not really like they can't see them, with the name SASHA flashing every 30 seconds or so. The crowd is chanting SASHA, SASHA, SASHA. They just paid $40 for 3 DJs, mainly for the headliner. Its either some sort of massive drug use, or extreme stupidity.

Most of the people there had me really really pissed, and sleeping on it hasn't helped. Part of this is because of, supposedly, the reason for Sasha not being here since 1996 is because he got pissed off at the lack of crowd response when he was last here. I'm worried that this is gonna happen again, and Dallas is going to get left out of the Sasha/Digweed tour that's coming up in 2002.

Crow

well, im not really sure what to say, I though JVM and Lee, played a good show, as well as Sasha. Im not quite sure what the cost to book JVM or Lee is, but i imagine had they booked Sasha as a headliner, and then lesser known DJ's (that didnt cost as much) and also decreased the amount of money they spent on lighting and Projection screens (dont get me wrong - the lighting was dope, but i thought the 3 projectors looked cooler when the actual lighting was hitting them, instead of the visuals). They could then decrease the costs of tickets, and thus pull in more people. Then maybe sasha would be happy.
Peace,
Michael
(harsh reality crew)

Mary557 is my honey bunny.

[phoenix]

as always, I respect your opinion Bolden, but a large part of the overall atmosphere of the party is how much ppl are enjoyin it, dancin, havin a good time, etc. You personally may have enjoyed it, as did I (though it didn't make me want to dance my ass off, it was well mixed and sonically superior), but most of the crowd wasn't diggin it, and that was blatently obvious. IMO, a DJ should be able to read the crowd well enough to put on a record that will make people want to dance, or something more in the style that everyone wants to hear when the set isn't being recieved well. I know lottsa DJ's have ideas of what they want musically when they go into a show, but sometimes it changes when you actually hit the turntables and see that your idea isn't working... sometimes you've just gotta be flexible.

Whichever one of you keeps talking about 40 being a good price.. So you have to have money to be truly into the music?? there have been times in my life where I couldn't even afford a pack of gum...Money has nothing to do with a person's level of commitment to a genre of music..you can love progressive house all you want, but that does not mean you can drop 40 bucks to go to a rave. I like Sasha, he played some cool shit, but I wasn't feelin it.. All I know is that I am damn glad I didn't pay to get in..Sasha can play whatever kind of shit he wants, if I was him I wouldn't have been too psyched to play for 40 ppl while the other 900 slept in the chairs and gave each other light shows...

[MattM]

wow, it seems that im one of the few who had a great time at the show. I thourghly enjoyed Sasha's set. It did seem that the speakers gave some feedback or distortion at times. Sasha even looked real pissed off about that at one time. anyhow, I've never heard progressive music played at a party. I figured there had to be some secret to it or something. Some reason that top djs cain it all the time. And to tell you the truth, Sasha exceeded my expectations. Flawless mixing, seemed like one long record. My friends even bounced out around 2:30 and I was like r yall crazy im stayin here. So i stayed there solo till 4. Just the fact that it was a new music to me, a new atmosphere at a party that I had never seen, something different than the in your face sound. Thats what made it for me. I was right down on the floor the whole time and the center red and white lights when a lot of fog was blown was a nice effect. I couldnt see anything from the fog but just a flashing light. It was nice. Well i paid 40 dollars and went and danced till I was sweaty and breathing heavy. It was fun. It seemed like I was only in there for an hour. The few people I met seemed nice. Someone gave me water, fives, etc. Anyhow, i thought Sasha stopped the music on purpose that one time towards the end. Well sorry for everyone that didnt have a good time. Peace out.

[phoenix]

yeah, it does suck that some ppl payed that much $ and didn't enjoy themselves... well, I did, that's all that matters

[Tortures Dionysos]

About Sasha NOT reading the crowd... and I believe that a DJ who is that tenured and who gets paid that much should have the ability to read his/her crowd.

I will say that Sasha did loose control and the interest of the crowd in Colorado... and THINK it was Digweed who kept bringing us back in... I think I can see why Digweed and Sasha TYPICALLY spin TOGETHER.

Yea... I have to say that Sasha disappointed me last night... BUT so did the crowd ... the lack of energy was disappointing... I wouldn't blame them if they never come back...

^i agree about the lack of crowd. i actually expected it to be madd packed as it was for oakenfold. then again, oakie was only 25$. still less ppl than i expected and no vibe.

i arrived around 1 (bf works late) and half the crowd was on the stage. the other was in the chairs. the speakers were a bit loud, my bf ears popped and today he cant hear sometimes. the red and white lights were cool but a bit bright i had to shield myself from them.

alot of clubber types which i didnt mind cuz i knew that they knew who they were seeing.

overall i had fun. i love sasha and am glad i finally got to see him. was it worth the 40 bucks? to me, when it comes to sasha it doesnt really matter.

I liked his set, it was different than the usual. I was only there for only 2 hours but I'm pretty sure he wasn't playing progressive house, it was more of a deep tribal trance set.. But, that's just how I heard it.
the sound was awesome.... It definately rocked my world.
and about the crowd not being into it:
quite honestly, I don't give a f&#% about the crowd...
I had a blast, and that's really all I base my opinions on!...


Bye

so the night was not up to par. Well, that makes me feel better for not going. I feel sorry for the folks who did pay the big bucks for Sasha only to be dissappointed by his set. You know,, I thought Sasha and Digweed are a good duo... but after reading this thread, I'm not sure If I like the road Sasha chose to travel with that last set... at least Digweed still rox my sox though...