Tiësto Backstage!

So it’s been awhile since I posted, so I figured I should write something. Actually I’ve had several things I’ve wanted to post, but just haven’t gotten around to sitting down and writing. So I’m going to start with something cool.

Perry, Brian, and I went to the Purenation Festival this past Saturday at Northerly Island. I’m pretty sure the sellout of tickets is imminent. :) Anyways, the show was from 12pm to 11pm, so we ended up showing up around 6. We didn’t want to deal with being on our feet all day, plus the good acts were later on in the evening. We were able to see half of Bad Boy Bill’s set, Deep Dish, and then finally Tiësto. I had seen Bad Boy Bill and Deep Dish before, but this was my first Tiësto event.

And boy was it memorable. The night started off pretty normally. It was your typical DJ show, loud music, cool lights, weird people. We were positioned in the middle of the crowd probably about 300 feet back. It was a pretty good position, but you’re not close enough to see everything. They had all of these plasma screens showing cool effects, when at one point they flashed a number that you could text to get backstage. I texted it, and while I was doing it Perry asked me what I was doing. I informed him of what I was doing and followed suit. It’s a contest with thousands of people entering, so we figured we wouldn’t win, but it didn’t cost us anything so why not. A little bit after this Brian arrived and we just hung out listening to music. Probably about 15 minutes into Tiësto’s set, Perry and Brian decided they were gonna go to the restrooms and grab some more drinks. I opted to stay behind. About 10 minutes after this I get a text from Brian telling me him and Perry are going backstage. My first thought is of course that they suck. :)

This is where the story gets cool, though I wasn’t there first hand. So after Brian and Perry leave me to go to the bathroom, Perry gets a phone call on his cell telling him he’s won the backstage contest. He’s told to meet up with some guy from Pure at the security exit, along with a friend. At this point they’re given 2 backstage passes that say Artist on them. Well as fate would have it they try to go through the security station to get backstage and the security guard won’t let them through. He doesn’t work for Pure, he works for Northerly Island, and for some reason he thinks the Yellow passes are no good. The Pure guy who gave them the passes argues for a minute with the security guard, but he won’t budge. So he goes back to his trailer and gets two more passes. One is purple and the other is yellow. He hands the purple pass to Brian face up and the Yellow pass to Perry face down, making it look like he just gave out two new purple passes. The guard lets them through this time and they get up on stage.

The nice thing is, the Pure guy never took their old passes. So now they’ve got 4 passes (3 yellows and a purple). They chill up on stage for a little bit and then Brian comes back and gets me. He gave me a yellow pass and then we went in a different way and were able to get in just fine. So due to an oversight all three of us were able to get backstage.

It was pretty cool. The Pure guys were a little rough when we got to close, but we were probably 20 feet from Tiësto, and we got some pretty awesome pictures. There’s actually a couple of me where I don’t look totally out of it. All in all it was a fun experience, though the music backstage wasn’t nearly as good as the music out in the audience because the speakers are pointed out into the crowd. Ah well, you can’t have everything. :)

The full gallery of the evening can be found here.

View from the audience…

The three of us chillin backstage…