Saturday night in the city and beginning our rounds at The Pointe (formerly Pointe Orlando) and Opa!We found DJ Vannymusic (USA) in the booth playing Top 40 and Reggaeton. The Greek restaurant features belly dancers too and when they dance, the music goes Greek!During our visit people were just dining and it was pretty jammed. But all those napkins on the ground can tell you one thing:Opa!!Also in The Pointe is The Hampton Social, another mostly restaurant which a later club scene.Here we found DJ Leony (USA) on the decks playing a light House mix.We were surprised about how empty the place was; it’s been jammed every time we’ve visited in the past.Other popular nearby clubs at The Pointe include Blue Martini and Cuba Libre. Currently downstairs in The Pointe is mostly restaurants and remain quite lively while upstairs, former homes of Matrix, Metropolis and B.B. Kings Blues Club, remain a work in progress as they rehab the place and bring-in new venues. We’ll keep you updated, of course.We were familiar with Club 3Nine inside the Rosen Plaza hotel but not with Zebra’s inside the Rosen Inn across International Drive from The Pointe,Every Saturday night from 7PM to 11PM DJ Ira Schwartz (USA) in the club and going all 80’s.And everything you hear comes off vinyl!There is a small bar available and we’re told most of the patrons at this hotel are British holidaymakers.It’s very low key but the tunes are great! International Drive clubs include the previously-mentioned Club 3Nine and Blue Martini plus nearby Ice Bar and Mango’s. Now we’ll add Zebra‘s to the list!OK, now to downtown Orlando and The Vanguard where a show was already in progress.DJ S.I.D (USA) aka Sounds In Dharma was the opener and his set was Trance.I didn’t realize this would be an unexpected night of mostly Trance!The dance floor still had some capacity though.Shift change at 11:30PM,Up next, DJ Jerro (B). He is based in Hasselt which is in the Flemish section of Belgium. A number of years ago we did an article about all the great electronic music coming out Flanders, Belgium. LINKAnd he gave us a wonderful 90-minute set with House, Melodic House, Vocal House (none of these mutually exclusive) and Trance. The people around me all buzzed about how good he was.And then at 1AM, this light came on signaling their “Forever, Now” tour had arrived.DJ duo Sultan + Shepard (CDN).I only remembered them as a House music duo but their entire set last night was Trance. Large swaths of vocal Trance intermixed with segments of non-vocal Trance.They looked so different from the last time we saw them play and those around us were trying to figure out which one was Shepard and which was Sultan lol. They are pictured in that order above.This is what they looked like in 2012 when we saw them play at Vain (now Celine) and they operated under the duo name Sultan & Ned Shepard. Now they are just Sultan + Shepard and apparently have gone Trance!We first encountered them at the Koolhaus in Toronto a year earlier when they opened for DJ David Guetta (F). They played instruments and Dance singer Nadia Ali (USA) provided live vocals!We also ran into them in 2017 in South Beach at the SiriusXM Music Lounge.Dance floor was packed for their set last night!Spotted on the dance floor: This group of crazy peeps!Biggest roar from the crowd was when they played Eric Prydz (S) dba Pryda hit “Allein“.Around 2:25AM they thanked the crowd and introduced their album and tour cover song “Forever, Now“.Great show and a good time was had by all.
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