[Event Review] Pier of Fear: Protocol Recordings New York Reboot

Photos by Pier of Fear

Just because Halloween was over doesn’t mean the party was is over here in New York City, the chaos continued into Saturday night. After spending a memorable Halloween at Pier 94 with the likes of Adventure Club, Tommy Trash, DJ Snake and Knife Party, it was time to return to the Pier for Nicky Romero’s Protocol Recordings New York Reboot! The lineup for this event featured an arsenal of progressive house powerhouses, Elephante, Arno Cost, John Dahlback, Dirty South, Nicky Romero, Don Diablo, and Ansolo. Pier of Fear had basically turned into a 2 day festival with these lineups!

We arrived at Pier 94 just in time to catch our man Elephante who delivered an extremely well balanced set of progressive and deep house tunes to welcome in the early crowd. While most of the crowd was still recovering from dancing literally all night long the night before, he had the crowd going. Following Elephante was Mr. Arno Cost who had the crowd moving and grooving for his hour behind the decks. As many of you know his recent release on SIZE records “Strong” with Norman Doray is a funky progressive house track and that’s exactly the type of set he dropped on the crowd. Oh and of course “Strong” made an appearance during his set. His set also included his remix of Nicky Romero’s “Feet On The Ground” and NEW_ID’s massive new tune “Aerogames”.

John Dahlback took center stage and put together a solid progressive set that included his Protocol release “Fireflies”, plus his recent track with Kaskade entitled “A Little More”. The crowd was officially rocking, but little did they know they were about to be taken on an emotional journey with Dirty South. With the release of his album only days away, Dirty South’s set featured a ton of new music such as opening with “Unbreakable” and “Freefallin’” while throwing in some of his older tracks. I’m talking about Dirty South classics like “Walk Alone” and “City of Dreams”, I was in heaven. I had not seen Dragan live since his set EDC NY 2012 and only had it short film to tie me over, he was well worth the wait.

After being taken on an emotional roller coaster full of feels, it was time for the Protocol mastermind to take the stage. Nicky Romero put on a show and it was hands down the best set I have ever seen out of him. His set included a bevy of Protocol Recording releases, including some unreleased gems. His set also included a ton of mashups and unexpected drops. No one knew what he was going to do next; Nicky Romero was simply playing mind games with the crowd.

Don Diablo picked off where Nicky Romero left off, dropping bombs on the crowd. While his set included all of his fan favorites such as “Knight Time”, “Anytime”, his remix of R3hab & Nervo’s “Ready For The Weekend”, “Back In Time” and “Starlight”, it was a very emotional night for him. Halfway through this set he took the mic and let the New York crowd know he had lost his grandmother 2 days prior. He went on to say how we almost didn’t make the show to be with his family, but his fans are his family. It was a real emotional moment, but it was clear Don Diablo was receiving nothing but love from the crowd.

New York’s own Ansolo came on to close out the night around 3:15am. Not familiar with Ansolo? Well you may be familiar with the film “The Fault In Our Star” and Ansel Egbert………yup, Ansel Egbert is Ansolo. Like Arno Cost, he had the crowd grooving until security was asking everyone to exit the building. While Pier of Fear weekend may be over, Pacha NYC and RPM are just starting to heat up with the events they’re bringing to Pier 94. Who is paying a visit in the upcoming months? As of now it looks like Carnage, Armin Van Buuren and Disclosure! For tickets and more info on those events, head on over to pachanyc.com.

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