Another year has whizzed on by and the silly season is upon us again. Those of you who haven't yet had enough of overeating and overdrinking might find some of the Christmas dinner options of interest. Otherwise, hold off on the food, tighten that belt and get ready to dance in the New Year.

Every club - from multifloored monsters down to little hole-in-the-wall DJ bars - will be open this year. It is a Saturday night, after all. And though most seem content to merely fling open their doors and install their staff behind the decks, there are some gems that will keep you up and out till well after the rooster lets forth its first cock-a-doodle-doo of the year ...

Vivid Experience: The ultimate rave experience of the year slips a gear and is being thrown on Christmas Day rather than New Year's Eve. But 7,000 plus ravers are again expected to turn up this year at Makuhari Messe for this joint Solstice Music/Vision Quest production. Appearing live are an across-the-board sampling of contemporary psychedelic and Goa trance units: Hallucinogen, Skazi, GMS, Astrix, Alien Vs The Cat and more. Trance is not my forte, but I did see both Skazi and GMS perform at the All Night Fuji Rave at this year's Fuji Rock Festival. Skazi - to quote my own Web-based review of that performance - "filled the air with electro-burbles and gurgles. They made me laugh, they made me dance [and] they made me 'see' space ... " GMS delivered a deep and flowing sound, which was equal parts squall and thunder with a dash of swirling vocals. Also up on the decks for progressive and psychedelic trance sets are DJs Dimitri DKN, Dino, Ryo and Ami.