EVENT: EUPHORIA 04
ORGANIZER : Tiger Beer
EVENT MGMT : Ideaholic Event Marketing
VENUE : Padang Field, Singapore
A sports ground the size of 2 football pitches. 25,000+ people; mostly
teenagers. Premium lager on tap and a flawless day. And acts flown in
from all four corners of the globe. Sounds like your typical huge British
live music event, doesn’t it? And there you would be mistaken. Because
this is Singapore and nothing (and I mean nothing) is what it seems in
Singapore.
This was the Tiger Beer branded event, Euphoria ’04. From the moment the
British hard dance duo, Zetan Spore, rose through the stage via very crafty
understage hydraulics…well, this was going to be something no one in Singapore
had seen before. Euphoria 04 was the first event of its kind in Singapore.
This was not only the largest outdoor event in Singapore’s history…it
was also the first.
Headlining act Zetan Spore was always going to be in interesting choice.
Dance music was illegal until very, very recently. That went for commercial
dance as well as the hard dance sounds of Zetan Spore, those clever tricksters
who fuse Psy trance, progressive house, hard dance and tribal sounds.
So the majority of popsters had never heard the likes of it before. However,
the festival’s organisers were most keen to get them out there.
Singaporeans are renowned for being conservative, well mannered and polite.
At fist, the audience wasn’t quite sure what to make of this duo who looked
like they had just stepped off the set of the latest Matrix movie set.
It was amazing to see their reaction’s within the first 15 minutes of
Zetan Spore’s 2 hour set. The audience went from “Are we still on planet
Earth” to “This is kind of cool” to absolute mayhem. Mayhem was helped
along with some absolute cheekiness from Mark and Ian Hasdell from Zetan
Spore – helped in large measures by throwing cups of lager off the stage
(which apparently breaks about 5 different laws in Singapore). That was
it, the crowd was theirs. The glow sticks almost became lethal weapons
and 25,000+ people just did their thing to the music – and did it energetically.
Ian Hasdell did his usual hallmark wizardry on the desk with twin brother
Mark Hasdell giving it his all on guitar and didgeridoo. After a two hour
live set, they left the stage with the audience wanting more.
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Not content with wining over the Singapore crowd, Ian and Mark’s humour
won the press and television journalists over from the word go...so much
so these newcomers nearly stole the press conference limelight.
Following swiftly on the heels of a premier performance supporting Eat
Static at “Future Sounds of Exeter” earlier in October and two major live
coast-to-coast radio broadcasts in America; Euphoria 04 hallmarks Zetan
Spore’s emergence as a major dance act hailing from Britain’s much-overlooked
Southwest. The act’s record label, Aardvark Records, is currently negotiating
tours for North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand.
About Zetan Spore
Evolving from the free party and festival circuit of the mid ‘90s, twin brothers Ian and Mark Hasdell have tapped into something extraordinary. Jaded clubbers, surfers, sk8ers and adrenaline junkies want something more from their dance music…wanting a bigger bang for their buck. This is a world where dance music fans have their own minds, know what they like and know what they want. Zetan Spore captures the spirit of this zeitgeist to perfection.
These intergalactic space cowboys have used the freedom of being based in Cornwall to experiment, push the dance music envelope and build a well earned profile for themselves on the British underground scene. The act has won rare praise from the likes of The Guardian and featured spots at live events such as London’s Antiworld.
Zetan Spore has won admiration, respect and success on the UK underground scene through years of hard work and sticking faithfully to their vision. This success has seen the release of five well-received LPs: The Pillars of Creation (1998), Subspace Distortions (1999), Outer Space Hopper Safari (2000) and Transwarp Audio Head Drive (2002) and Burn Up (2004).
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 Additional Information
 Zetan Spore
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