In Overdrive

The Xbox 360 Overdrive Party is on again and local DJ Van Miert is preparing to bring the party to the Gold Coast.  The apprentice electrician, who first started out playing at GPO, has slowly been perfecting his craft through a jam-packed schedule of gigs, the most recent of which being Parklife.

“That was probably the biggest and best festival I've played so far,” he chuckles, sounding somewhat like a kid on Christmas day. “It was definitely the biggest crowd I've played to, I got a couple friends, Sampology and Charlie Hustle, to come up and do cuts while I was mixing and Charlie was hyping the crowd up, it was awesome!”

A purveyor of what he calls 'party tunes', the Uber resident says he plays a range of music aimed at getting the party started.

“Back when I started out I was playing dance music but I wanted to get into playing hip hop because I really loved listening to it when I was younger,” he explains. “Playing at Uber got me used to playing hip hop and now I float between the two genres, as well as playing house and electro gigs, and funk at places like Cloudland.

“My festival sets combine all of these different sounds because I like to entertain and play tracks that people may not have heard for a while, I enjoy getting a good reaction from the crowd, which is why I got into DJing.”

Van Miert works hard and is in demand, at one point playing up to 12 gigs a week, most likely because he knows what gets a crowd moving.

“Heavy dance beats with catchy hooks people can sing along to and something that is really upbeat. For Parklife and Creamfields I really tried to find tracks that had that 'Jump Around' (by House Of Pain) catchiness,” he laughs.

“I just tried to make sure each track out-did the last and people really seemed to go off, so I plan to do the same with the Xbox 360 Overdrive gig. I had a look at some of the videos from last year and it looked like it was heaps of fun, so I'm planning on bringing that same energy to my set this year and to make it really entertaining. I'm going to play tracks that will get everyone on the dancefloor and keep them there.”

Catch Van Miert at the Xbox 360 Overdrive Party at East in Broadbeach on October 22.