As promised, herewith my review of the retro acid party of last Saturday in Ghent (.be). As posted previously, the bill was :
DJ Agent Orange (unknown to me but apperently from .be)
DJs Mo & Benoelie (well known crew from .be, very popular)
Mike Dredd (I thought he would be playing live but I was dead wrong)
Damon Wild (some comment as for Mike Dredd).
I managed to miss the first DJ-set, but hey ... who cares. The hall were the event took place could host about 1000 people and was jam-packed (I love the Jonzun Crew) by 1am. It was decorated with an abundance of smiley (you have to love them) balloons and styrofoam boards, funny & kitsch-y. My girlfriend actually managed to sneak out one of the styrofoam things (75 cm diameter ... soon to be decorating our bedroom) past security after several people tried to snag it out of my hands.
Oh yeah, there was music (sorry for being carried away) too, the second DJ-set was probably one of the best I ever heard I my life, these guys seemed to play my entire collection of acid-house records that I've worshipped for years and still do. I was there with some younger friends and that found it pretty funny to catch me laughing my head off in recognition to most of the tunes. They played a blistering mix of Phuture, Stakker Humanoid, Mayday, LNR, ... you name any ancient acid track and they played it. Needless to say I danced my head off ... They finished at around 1.30 am ...
... when Mike Dredd took over. I have to say I was disappointed to see that he did not perform live (eventhough his played his own track that was featured on the _in order to dance vol. 5_ compilation). Buy that time, the place was over-crowded and much too hot to dance (I really really hate this when it happens but the organisers did not limit the access ...) and Mr. Dredd decided to overload the sound-system time and time again so that I decided to watch from the balcony where there was room to breathe and sit down. I heard him spin some more classics like Bam Bam, Baby Ford (_oochy koochy_ is still one of my all time favorite tracks ever ...), again Phuture, Mr. Lee, Liddell Townsell, ... all the good stuff from Detroit and Chicago. Because of the messy sound and the ever growing crowd, I was not in the mood to stay for Damon Wild and we decided to call it a day and went to another party to unwind to some wanky disco-stuff.
All and all, a nice event with great music that made me feel young again. I was either this party or going to a gig by Sonar (industri-techno from .be, Panasonic^2) or a Thunderdome-rave (which is gabber for those of you that are not familiar with the term) that attracted 18.000 people (only 12 ended up in hospital apparently).
I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to shell out $25 for each of the ambient festivals that our going to be coming to my tiny country soon ... eventhough it would be a rare occasion to see both Biosphere and Namlook (maybe joined by DSN/Move D and/or HIA) play live again.
Signing off,
dv8 (303-addict, soon to be playing with his new toy ... REBIRTH !!!)