By Will Cade

The start of Madrid’s Rock in Rio music festival is still over a month away, but I’m more excited about how it’s going to end. The festivities during the last weekend in June and first in July have an amazing line-up, with such big name artists as Franz Ferdinand, Tokio Hotel, and Bob Dylan, but the closing act can still top them all – and it’s only one man with two turntables.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to DJ Tiesto, the Dutch phenom voted best DJ on the planet. The number of people in the 200,000 cubic meter festival site just outside Madrid should be astronomical, but this won’t be the first time Tiesto has played for a grand audience. He mixed the Parade of Athletes at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens (the first ever DJ to do so) not to mention he was the first solo DJ to ever sell out a stadium of over 25,000.

In the electronic music world, Tiesto has remixed the rules. He started mixing in Holland during the mid-nineties, working his way up from club to club and harnessing his skills. When his popularity sky-rocked, he traveled the world over one party at a time and molded his music into a mix of trance, house, and techno. He even pulled off mixing classical in his “Adaggio for Strings,” one of his most famous tracks. This eclectic style has allowed him to move beyond the club and rave scene to compete with major acts on the big stage, a feat previously unheard of in the business.

Even with his irrefutable success, Tiesto is still staying true to what brought him here – a love for making music. Bathed in laser-lights, Tiesto takes his music to a new level during live performances, even mixing for up to 9 hours straight. He has spent the last few months mixing the night away in Thailand and working on his long anticipated live album, “In Search of Sunrise 7.”

You may not be able to pick up a copy of “In Search of Sunrise 7″ just yet, but you can see him live July 6^th right here in Madrid. Judging by his track record, you might even watch him finally find what he has been searching for, as the sun rises up over the crowd and signals the perfect end to both the festival and the night.

Tags: DJ Tiesto, Electronic Music, Madrid, Music Festivals, rock in rio

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.