Let me start by saying this: I'd never seen Wolfgang Gartner live before this event. I was expecting it to be the usual EDM-DJ-Nightclub show but after reading about Gartner's prowess as a live performer and as a DJ, you could say that I was really excited to witness my first show as a member of the Daily Beat family.

When I got to LURE right at opening time, I saw an empty expanse of a club that was to be filled to capacity later that night. The extravagant array of floor tables and the lighting structures were only a preview of the insane light show that Wolfgang Gartner's video techs must have had prepared for the show.

The support act, Bixel Boys, played a 2 hour set comprised initially of groovy deep house and acid house. Their set progressed throughout the night into one of higher and higher energy, with them dropping hard-hitting tracks such as Oliver's "MYB," Nicky Romero & Sunnery James and Ryan Marciano's "S.O.T.U." and balancing them out with more melodic, groovy tracks like Tchami's remix of "You Know You Like It" by AlunaGeorge. I was pleasantly surprised at their abilities as opening DJs to at once build a steady groove, get the crowd ready for the headliner by playing heavy tracks, and still play through a vast spectrum of music ranging from deep house to electro house to Drake's "Started From The Bottom" (ok they only played the one hip hop song, but still).

As the openers faded out their set and Wolfgang Gartner got on stage and started prepping to play, I could feel a sense of anticipation building in the crowd. The club, lavishly laid out with tables packed with partiers of all ages (above 21) was getting more and more packed as bouncers flashed their lights to get people out of their way and towards the stage.

Wolfgang Gartner packed a dense set into his 2 hour allotment, playing a BPM-jumper's dream of rocking 128 BPM electro house, slowed down bangers and fast paced tracks to keep the crowd guessing. When Gartner dropped into the intro melody of "Illmerica," I as well as much of the crowd went absolutely nuts. He showed that even as a headliner with a vast repertoire of his own music, he as not above playing music by other artists and proceeded to simultaneously keep the crowd jumping and moving and show off his vast music collection. For example, he dropped Botnek's edit of Martin Garrix's dance anthem "Animals" and the crowd didn't know any better.

Gartner is easily one of the best live DJs I've seen, mainly due to the fact that he's unafraid to use wild effects and loops to keep the audience guessing. At one point in his set, he seemed so focused on the decks that he almost looked lost, alone in his own universe. At the end of his scheduled set, the crowd chanted "Gartner! Gartner!" and he came back on to the stage to play his infamous song "Wolfgang's 5th," a pumping electro house track infused with samples from Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

It was quite difficult to get a good amount of satisfactory photographs at this event because of the size and density of the crowd, but head on over to the Daily Beat Facebook page to see the full set of photos!