If you walked past the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Sunday night and wondered why the ground was vibrating, don’t worry, it was just the collective heartbeat of 10,000 people falling in love with a German man.
Marlon Hoffstadt, aka DJ Daddy Trance hosted a family reunion for the city’s ravers on a warm Sunday night at our cities most iconic outdoor music venue. We all know the “Boiler Room” aesthetic is having a moment, but seeing it scaled up to a venue this size was something else entirely. The stage wasn’t just occupied by the man himself, but packed deep with a hand-picked crowd dancing behind him, turning the usually distant performer-audience dynamic into one giant, sweaty house party that just happened to have world-class production.
The energy from the jump was frantic in the best way possible. Hoffstadt has this uncanny ability to make hard trance feel wholesome, like a high-BPM hug.
We were treated to the usual suspects of pounding basslines and euphoric synths, but the real magic trick happened in the final thirty minutes. Just as we thought we had the night figured out, the lights cut, and the focus shifted. Hoffstadt abandoned the main stage entirely, popping up on a tiny, intimate stage right in the middle of the venue next to where we just so happened to be standing after a quick bar run. Suddenly, the people at the back were at the front, the people at the front were turning around, and the Bowl felt incredibly small and connected. It was a masterstroke of crowd control that dissolved whatever barriers were left.
You could practically feel the serotonin spike across the park when he grabbed the mic and dropped his signature, “It’s that time!” The opening notes of his viral hit sent the crowd into a frenzy, but he wasn’t done with us yet. Closing the night with a high-energy remix of Alice Deejay’s “Better Off Alone” was almost unfair. It’s a track that triggers instant nostalgia for about three different generations, and hearing it screamed back by a sea of people under the Melbourne sky was the kind of moment that stays with you.
Walking out onto St Kilda Road, ears buzzing and legs aching, I realised that for all the “cool” posturing of the electronic scene, sometimes you just want to listen to fast music and sing along to a cheesy hook with your mates. Daddy Trance delivered exactly that.
– The Plus Ones
Marlon Hoffstadt toured Australia with Untiled Group. Checkout their full tour and see other upcoming shows here.
This venue is accessible.
