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A stadium-sized multimedia experiment developed around the Dutch trance DJ’s legendary six-hour sets may sound like a losing venture to the fickle sorts who think the whole “electronica” thing is over.

But his brain hasn’t been rattled by standing near the bass bins too long. The man voted “Best DJ in the World” three times in a row by DJ Magazine says the multiple screens, massive lighting rigs and concept based upon the 2007 Elements of Life album released North America-wide on Vancouver’s

Nettwerk Records is meant to “totally blow you away.

“Reactions are amazing to it at the shows that we played on the Continent and in New York and Los Angeles,” says Tiesto, 38. “I’ve been thinking about how it would come together for about three years now, how to make a big event happen that’s really good because it’s always cool.”

With a 35-member team on hand, this is hardly just another jaunt around the globe to drop some dope beats for the club crowd. A fixture in the dance-

mixing scene for nearly two decades, Tiesto knows about the party action and respects it. But for this tour, there is more performance in mind.

“People come to raves to take drugs and not to really take in the music and you play to their response. This is quite different. A lot more thinking went into this to co-ordinate it to the idea of the four elements of life: air, water, fire and earth.”

Each of these “element movements” is carefully choreographed by the production team to seamlessly blend in. The music flows throughout.

“The earth is really slow, warm music, air is more trancey, water is more harder trance and fire is more housey. That’s a very simplified explanation.”

While his initial rise to fame was in the trance scene, it was epic remixes of tracks such as Delerium’s Silence with Sarah McLachlan that led to the deal on this side of the pond with Nettwerk for the release of the mix album Summerbreeze. Peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard dance charts, the remix spent four weeks in the U.K. top 10.

Jump ahead to Athens in 2004 and he’s the first DJ to play an Olympic opening ceremony, captured in the album Parade of the Athletes. The difference between these two career peaks clearly shows an artist in development; one bound to have irked some fans.

“There are two kinds now. The ones who come to hear the old albums and the classics and the ones who are there for the new material. Fortunately, they both come to the show and I am playing old, new, classic and more, so everyone is happy.”

He still shakes his head at the degree of success he’s experienced. It’s a long way from local clubs in his hometown of Breda, Netherlands, to a projected arena audience of 10,000 for shows on this tour. Whether he can pull those numbers remains to be seen, but it won’t stop him from doing what he does best: working hard and always expanding his musical scope.

- AUGUST 24TH – 2007 (Edmonton Journal)

But you’d be absolutely correct if you replied that both have praised Tiësto (born Tijs Verwest in the Netherlands) for the work he is involved in.

When the trance DJ got his residency at the tender age of 16 back in ‘85, there really was no way of knowing how much of a dance music emissary he would become. In 2006, he became Dance4Life’s worldwide ambassador, working towards greater HIV/AIDS awareness among the world’s poorer youth. The project involves education, action and, of course, dancing.

When he took the post, he created a song (of the same name as the organization) with singer Maxi Jazz, which he debuted at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto last summer. (“Dance4life is a wonderful example of how the talent and strength of young people can energize our struggle,” Kofi Annan has said of the organization.)
“Bishop Tutu made a special speech for it, and yeah, it feels good,” he says humbly. “The guy who runs Dance4Life is a guy from Holland (co-founder Dennis Karpas) and he gets through to everybody—he even had a meeting with Bono a couple of weeks ago in Africa. He’s a very dedicated guy, and he’s very inspirational for me, too.” Tiësto, though, is inspirational himself, as he’s also accomplished a string of DJ firsts that have helped propel electronica into the stratosphere.

“It’s much more accepted as a full profession, I think,” he says. “It’s a big change, I think, to see DJs as artists.”
It’s a change that Tiësto has helped spark. He was the first DJ to play live at an Olympics opening ceremony (Athens 2004) and the first deckman to play a solo stadium show. The night after he plays Edmonton in support of his latest album, Elements of Life, he’ll be playing a solo show at Vancouver’s GM Place—making him the first DJ to have a solo stadium show of this size (in the neighbourhood of 10 000) in Canada.

It’s hard to say what it is, exactly, that marks Tiësto as such a world-class DJ. His brand of melodic trance is certainly in a league of its own, and repeatedly you’ll read about how attentive he is to his audience. (“I would do something to please people —it would be something in the serving sector,” he says when I ask what he’d be doing if he wasn’t a DJ.) He also works exceptionally hard, including constant touring and a weekly radio show.
But it’s most likely his unwillingness to tout himself too much. A train of aliases chugs through his discography, and it’s likely that only he knows how very prolific he has been since he started recording and producing in the ‘90s.

His fame, however, has come with a seedier side—rumours abound. Last year, there was internet buzz that he died in a car crash in the US, and in May of this year, there were reports of a plot to kill him during a summer show in Lebanon (the show ended up being a huge success and the largest in the country’s history).
All of this kind of dishing is something that he finds more than a little weird. At the end of the day, all he wants to do is what he’s been doing for two decades now—share music with folks.

CAROLYN NIKODYM – VUE WEELY (AUGUST 22nd, 2007)