Review: Tiestö at London Docklands

Now let’s be honest, Tiestö isn’t necessarily prime Ransom Note material as far as coverage goes.

However, there’s a bit of a nostalgic interest here given that I was raised on Trance compilations back in the day.

I still have a huge soft spot for that era of dance music – the hyper romanticised ‘let’s all go to Ibiza and have the best kind of our lives’ sort of soft spot and that is why we are here. Plus given everyone seems to be playing music at an average BPM of 140 these days then why not make it big room Trance. At least that was the hope.

In recent years Tiestö has dabbled in a myriad of styles and sounds – from Electroclash to EDM, House and at times records you’d be hard pressed not to call just straight up Pop.

That stuff wasn’t great to put it lightly. Really, not great.

There has though, been a recent shift and a return to the origins of the sound which made Tiestö such an all star to me when I was younger. Trance is back at the moment and hopefully it seemed that Tiestö was on board with that.

As such there was a lot of expectation around the set. What would he play? Would he take inspiration from the surroundings and the average age of the crowd and do what was fundamentally right and overdue?

He emerged to the set, a prolific set at that, with huge visuals and a radiant light show.

Things started off with great promise, an unexpected moment saw a rare feature for Karen Overton’s ‘Your Loving Arms’ which had heads nodding appreciatively.

However, soon afterwards was a somewhat bizarre thirty minutes where it felt like he was arguing internally about where to go next – some god awful “Dubstep” remix seemed to catch people cold, this was the summit of the EDM era Tiestö – which in all honesty nobody wanted to see.

But then… it all clicked.

The penny dropped and things changed fast.

A version of ‘Strange World’ from Push was met to a rapturous reception as was the predictable yet undeniably euphoric ‘Silence’ remix of Delirium. This is what people were here for.

The planes whizzed over and the next two hours sped up real fast.

Tiestö worked his way through the decades, even managing to play the likes of ‘Flight 643’ and ‘Lethal Industry’. The results were magnificent. A crowd abuzz with the nostalgia of music they’d left behind long ago.

Groups danced, fires burned on pillars all around.

It all climaxed, somewhat predictably with the crescendo which was of course ‘Adagio For Strings’. Heard a million times before but reinvigorated in the current scenario. Ultimately this was the celebration of a DJ who’s legacy is unparalleled in some senses. Whilst that journey hasn’t always been to everyone’s taste – he has earned the right to follow it.

However, in this scenario, on that beautiful Sunday at the Docklands, I was just very glad that he did the right thing and played the Trance music which made me first fall in love with it all.