Paul van Dyk’s hair has gone blonde but his ability to entertain a South African crowd and make it look seamless is as strong as when he first visited SA, more than a decade ago.
Truth night club hosted Paul van Dyk and a bunch of local house and trance DJs who enjoyed massive success at the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s. Speedy, Morgan and most of their company made good use of the sound equipment available to them.
The event began at eight and ran smoothly until around 06:00 the next day. The bars were fairly well-manned. Sometimes it took a few minutes too many to get a beer but, on the whole, people were served. A bar did run out of vodka, however, at about 01:30. This may have upset some vodka Red Bull fans.
Truth has changed its look over the last few weeks. The decorations and marquee type covers were fresh on the eye on the first Friday in February; freshly set for one of the most professional DJs in clubbing history.
Mr van Dyk began by drinking something out of a coffee mug – he’s German, so let’s say it was coffee. This was while he was waiting in the DJ pit. He then knelt on the steps up to the stage as if he was asking the stage to accept him for his set. At 01:55, PVD, aka Matthias Paul, began a three hour plus set, with a smile.
A large portion of the set was dedicated to modern house typical of his newest album, Evolution. I wonder if he thinks he is evolving into a modern house DJ. His latest single, Verano was very exciting on Friday night.
Later in his set, he played some classics such as For An Angel. Towards the end, he remixed the likes of Snow Patrol and Hurts. His version of British art-rock newbies Hurts’ Sunday was moving. It was Saturday morning but he would do well to play it somewhere in the world on a Sunday.
Given that he has in the past had the second largest Miles & More frequent flyer account of Lufthansa, he definitely will.
For a man of 40, with over 20 years’ experience, he looked active and happy. If a DJ looks happy, his audience is likely to feel slightly too. He even threw his head phones around a bit, trying to look cool.
He looked cute instead but the audience kept on jamming. Maybe if he was full of pills and ripped his shirt off, he would look cool chucking things around. Actually, topless men at clubs do not look particularly cool. This is why it was even more entertaining to see Mr van Dyk, a slight man of about 5 foot 8 entertain hordes of clubbing maniacs and a few topless posers.
Paul van Dyk was one of the pioneers of the dance scene in Berlin in the early 90s. His brand has spread from that regularly trendy city to Johannesburg; a city which is trying to build an identity. Truth has helped develop the clubbing part of that identity.
Alistair Anderson
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