Making his first-ever stop in Calgary on the Canada Day Long Weekend holiday with an appearance at Tantra Nightclub, Andy Moor proved why he's one of the world's best progressive trance djs and producers (and not to mention one of my personal favorites). With a relentless onslaught of pounding beats and ripping melodies all superbly mixed together, he took a full house of progressive trance lovers on a very memorable journey.

Starting off the night was Calgary's own favorite Cary Chang, doing a special tag set with rising local star Dustin Hogan. Warming up the floor with some electro-infused riffs and funky progressive as club-goers made their way in, the atmosphere was kept toned down and modest. For true progressive lovers who anticipated a more serious sound from the moment they walked in it was a bit of a detachment, but for the overall club it turned out to be the right musical play, keeping the room relaxed and full of smiles.

Just after midnight the reigns were handed over to Mr. Moor who immediately stepped up the pace, the energy and the volume (which turned out to be a bit of detractor over the course of his set as the sound system was over it's peak). Rolling through a few tracks of banging progressive right into a fierce run of prog and tech trance, the quickly jammed dance-floor was whipped into a cheering frenzy, culminating with one of his biggest tracks, the psy bass-line infused "Year Zero (Andy Moor's First Light Remix)." Coming down slightly after that, the set progressed into some dreamy melodic sounds with a touch of vocals here and there, moving into another build up towards the end, concluding with some of the best trance out there today.

All in all, with a holiday the next day and being a prelude to the silliness of Stampede at the club's disposal, it was one of the better shows in recent memory at Tantra; the year-round hot spot for many of the top dj shows in Calgary. In terms of attendance, the turnout was great, but not to the point of being uncomfortable squished with plenty of dance-able real estate to go around, and besides the odd hooligan, the crowd was generally very in tune and pleasantly into the night's proceedings.

Overall show rating: 8/10

(which could've been higher had Andy Moor not cranked the master volume on the mixer to the point where the speakers to the left side were so loud and distorted that my hearing in that ear was somewhat limited the next day).

Looking forward to some more great shows coming up for Stampede including another favorite, Markus Schulz.