DJs the Life of the Parties as 2002 Arrives

Just hours before he took the stage at Hollywood and Vine to help L.A. ring in the new year, British deejay Paul Oakenfold talked about the difficulty of finding the perfect song to play at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

“I spent weeks trying to figure it out,” Oakenfold confessed in a backstage area. “But I finally found the song. It’s not a dance song, but it’s by the first big [pop-rock] group to embrace dance music, so it has the essence of dance music.”

A woman nearby guessed U2, which Oakenfold denied. However, after actress Carmen Electra later led tens of thousands of partygoers in the countdown to 2002, Oakenfold cued up the familiar intro to the Irish band’s “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

As fans celebrated the arrival of the new year by hugging, singing along and throwing confetti, it was a magical moment not only for those on hand but for others in a city that has been mocked for a history of uninspired New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Attempts at mass New Year’s Eve galas in L.A. have tended to be so unfulfilling that they’ve been akin to taking your sister to the prom. It’s one way to attend the party, but you’re probably better off staying at home.

Thanks to an influx of major artists from the electronic music scene and the growing perception that L.A. is fast becoming the new world hot spot for dance music, New Year’s Eve 2001 held the promise of something more.

While Oakenfold, Deep Dish, Jason Bentley, Sander Kleinenberg, BT and others led the celebration at Spundae’s Center of the Universe event on Hollywood Boulevard that attracted some 30,000 fans over its nine hours, organizers said, top-name deejays Sasha and Paul Van Dyk, along with Jimmy Van M, Derrick Carter and more, had a capacity crowd of some 12,500 dancing the night away in a spectacular domed setup a few miles away on the grounds surrounding the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Backstage in the Coliseum area, Sasha wondered after his trance-heavy three-hour set how many fans attended both parties. From the looks of the differing crowds, the answer was not many.

Hollywood Boulevard attracted an older audience, ranging from people in their early 20s to those in their 50s and 60s, many of whom were clearly there for the allure of being on the legendary street as it was turned into a futuristic street fair, complete with food vendors, green laser lights, booming stereo systems, giant video screens and a Ferris wheel. Book-ended by stages at Cahuenga and Vine, the event wove its way through side streets Cosmo, Ivar and Selma as well.

By contrast, Giant’s Giant Village at the Coliseum grounds, which had the feeling of a large club, brought in the rabid dance fans. Mostly in their early to mid-20s, the ethnically diverse fans pushed their way to the front of the stage, soaking in the awesome sound system that deejays Sasha, Jimmy Van M and Lee Burridge lauded after their sets.

Those few fans, though, who did brave traffic between the two events got a big payoff. If you planned it right, you could have seen an unparalleled lineup of Oakenfold, Deep Dish, Sasha and Van Dyk. While all performed expertly, there may be no better live deejay act right now than Deep Dish.

The Washington, D.C.-based duo, who earned attention through remixing tracks for the likes of Madonna and ‘N Sync, tore up the boulevard with a three-hour mix of popular house tunes and big, airy, keyboard-rich instrumentals.

A few blocks away, Oakenfold proved up to the challenge laid down by Deep Dish. He surrounded his midnight selection of U2’s song with the larger-than-life grooves that have made him an international sensation.

At Coliseum Gardens, Sasha also displayed the masterful talent for dramatic rises that has led him to be named No. 1 in the world multiple times by the leading dance publications. On this night, he skillfully worked the crowd into a continuous, fist-pumping frenzy.

There aren’t many deejays on the scene today that could follow Sasha, but Germany’s Paul Van Dyk is one of them. Fresh from Phoenix, where he did a set earlier that night, Van Dyk didn’t miss a beat as he went straight into a fierce mix of spacey trance selections that filled the dome from the packed-in front all the way back to the grassy fields where weary dancers rested.

Though it was the big names that attracted the most interest, there were other quality performances turned in at the two venues, including a furiously paced set of hard-core beats from Junkie XL and a groovy blend of pop and techno from DJ Sneak.

Still, no moment surpassed that of midnight. After viewing it from the stage, Gene La Pietra, producer of the Center of the Universe event, said the scene gave him chills--as well it should have.

When U2 opened its concerts in 1987 with the uplifting, optimistic “Where the Streets Have No Name,” the band generated a sense of hope, almost a dawning of an era musically and socially.

Played by Oakenfold, the song again stirred those feelings. In the shadow of Sept. 11, one sensed that the crowd didn’t go to these events just for world-class music but also for the hope to move on.