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 Saturday October 23rd was the day on which the first edition of this new party-concept took place. Benjamin Bates, Marcel Woods and Cosmic Gate were just a small part of the list of DJ’s that had been booked. Click in to find out if the party itself was as good as the line-up!
Let me first list the full line-up, in case you didn’t know yet:
Hall 1: Jean Plastiq, Ricky Rivaro, Benjamin Bates, Benny Rodrigues, Michel de Hey, JRD
Hall 2: Bass Control, Cor Fijneman, Cosmic Gate, Robert C, Marcel Woods
My fellow raver and me entered the venue at about ten o’clock. After going to the wardrobe and through a quick search (there were no people waiting in line, it was kind of not busy yet ;-) ) we went on to check out the stages and decorations. First thing I noticed was that everything was set up in a rather large way, knowing that there were about 1500 of the 2500 available tickets sold; the two halls were both set up to contain at least two times more people, which made me have the feeling that it wasn’t going to be a ‘packed night’. Anyway, both halls had the DJ stages placed at the same position, overlooking the whole dancefloor in a nice way. Each hall also had its own Heineken bar, set up near the sides of the halls, stretched out far enough to ensure fast service most of the time. Ricky Rivaro was jamming out his housey beats, which made us get a beer and check everything out just a little more precise. The stage in hall 1 was decorated in a somewhat ‘spacey’ way, with alien dolls looking over the dancefloor, and a bunch of jellyfish look-alike things hanging on the ceiling. Kind of cool, but I think it all would have been a lot more noticeable if everything wasn’t set up that large. The lighting was very cool: a circle of truss was located directly above the dancefloor, containing a bunch of nice scanners, some effects with a lot of bursts coming out of them and some pars. The DJ stage had some lighting on it as well, which gave it all just that extra bit of feeling. After getting ourselves one more beer, we went on to check out the second hall, which had the more trancy DJ’s lined up. We entered during the second hour of Fijneman’s set, who was spinning a damn fine set with tunes like Filterheadz – ‘Yimanya’, Tiesto – ‘Just Be’ (Antillas Club Mix) and Young Parisians vs. Ben Lost – ‘Jump The Next Train’.
Cor Fijneman in the mix
The decoration here was minimal (as in the other hall), but decent nonetheless. Two huge flowers were placed near both sides of the DJ stage, and two spacey things that looked like escape pods from a Star Trek movie were set at the front of where the DJ was standing. All this made me want to take some pictures, so I got out my cam and went backstage to check out what it looked like over there.
Shook some hands as well, and met DJ Tis aka Bass Control, who played a short set before Fijneman got behind the wheels. A nice guy with a lot of talent whom we might here more from in the future. I went back to the dancefloor and noticed that it still wasn’t very crowded yet, which made me go back to Hall 1 to get some pics of Benjamin Bates, who was playing after mr. Rivaro:
Benjamin Bates in control
Benjamin was playing a real nice set, such a shame that it wasn’t crowded at all: no more than 10-20 people were on the floor, but I did notice that Benjamin still enjoyed himself; playing around with the EQ, smile on his face, respect! Meanwhile, the guys from Cosmic Gate arrived, though it seems like they got to the wrong stage at first. They soon realized that they had to spin their tunes in the other area, so they went off, and so did I, ‘cause I wanted to be there when they started their set. The clock ticked along until 11 PM, the time at which CG started spinning. Seems like they wanted to attract a bit more crowd, because they jumped right into some blasting hardtrance, compared with the more trancey feel that Fijneman had brought out.
Nic & Bossi getting ready
Smile! (shame the lights went out here)
‘Ultra Curve’, one of their more recent tunes, worked kind of well on the floor, but soon they took a step back to the somewhat more uplifting tracks. Re:Locate’s ‘Typhoon’ came along, together with the CG remix for Beam – ‘Amun’ and (yes, even more productions from the guys) their remix for the classic Age Of Love. The dancefloor started to fill itself more and more, which definitely raised the atmosphere by miles. I also noticed that the overall ambiance was rather friendly; people who I had never seen before just came to me, shook my hand, and went on dancing. Cool stuff.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Bates was finishing his set, and Benny Rodrigues entered the stage together with some mates he took along. The dancefloor was still not too crowded (seemed like everyone went to see Cosmic Gate), but Benny tried to make the best of it by spinning tunes that make him the reknown DJ he is: mostly vague, but very cool, housey, techy, clubby, groovy, or whatever you want to call it. He even mixed in a tech-housey kind of remix of Hertz – Recreate (or perhaps an older track which just sampled the older T99 classic). One thing I forgot to mention at the beginning of the report: this area had a large viewscreen just above the booth, so as a visitor, you were able to see every move that the DJ made. Here’s a picture of Benny by the way:
Mr. Rodrigues
Jean Plastiq, the man who already opened the first hall at the very beginning, got to play some more tunes in between sets from others as well, blending electro with some deep tech-house:
Jean Plastiq
In the meantime, Nic and Bossi were finishing their set, making place for Robert C, an upcoming Dutch DJ who spins a blend of techno and some groovy rhythms. His set took about two hours, but I wasn’t there most of the time because resident Dutch maestro Michel de Hey was gearing up in the other hall. It seemed like Rodrigues had been spinning a good set, because the dancefloor was getting fuller and fuller. Michel spun what he does best: melodic, mostly accessible techno, ensuring the not-too-‘specialized’ crowd to enjoy themselves to the max. I sat down for a while, watched the crowd a bit, and made some more pics:
The DJ kind of left me here...
Michel de Hey
Deep inside, I was waiting for the clock to hit the 3 AM mark, because that was when Marcel Woods was to hit the decks in the trance area. He must be one of my favourite DJ’s at the moment, because of both his productions and his techy, but very energetic sets. The dancefloor was the most occupied I had seen all night, so nothing stood in the way to a cool last 3 hours of this party… and it was! Marcel started with some energetic warmup tunes like Remy & Roland Klinkenberg – ‘Till Ya Drop’, and went on to the style he kind of invented: tech-trance. ‘Time’s Running Out’, ‘Static State’ and his two new singles ‘Cherry Blossom’ and ‘Adrenalin’ came by, which all caused mayhem throughout the crowd. Especially ‘Cherry Blossom’ did very well: techy percussion with a kind of classical sounding break, followed by this huge array of synth stabs, playing a wonderful melody along their way. The year ain’t over yet, but this might just be one of the better tunes I heard in 2004, especially live. Bliss!
Marcel Woods adjusting the EQ
‘Adrenalin’ is a cool track as well, a bit more techy, but with a catchy hookline and a tight bass. More and more energy burst out of the speakers, created by tunes like Jesselyn – ‘Omnia’ and Tiesto – ‘Adagio For Strings’ (which definitely pleased the crowd, it seemed). Talking about crowdpleasers, Marco V.’s remix of Coldplay – ‘Clocks’ did it’s work as well! As Marcel does in most of his sets, he started playing a bit more techno oriented tracks. Cohen vs. Deluxe – ‘Just Kick’ (Carl Cox Remix) came by, together with the odd Alex Peace – ‘Inside The Speaker’. Time ticked on and on, and 6 AM was there faster than I would have wanted it to be…
Let me sum up the +’s and –‘s:
+ The line-up & the sets: very well done. Bates, Woods, de Hey, CG, all quality. The upcoming DJ’s were all very good as well, quality stuff. Set of the night was Marcel Woods’, in my opinion.
+ Fast service at the bar. I got my drink within half a minute, most of the time.
+ The crowd. Mostly cool people, haven’t seen any aggressive types.
- One thing that bothered me was the overall set-up of the halls: it was way too large. It would be better to use half of the space next time (or even less, perhaps).
- The lighting: the truss was done in a nice way, but it wasn’t enough to fill the whole area. See my previous point, if they fix that, this will be fixed automatically.
- The fact that it wasn’t crowded in Hall 1 most of the time: such a shame, because Benjamin, Benny, Michel and all the others were playing very cool sets.
All in all a very decent party, let's see if the next edition will attract just that extra bit of people!
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