Amsterdam Dance Event
Autumn is a time of transition as the sweltering heat of summer tappers off, giving way to cooler days, longer nights, and for those of us blessed to be close enough to the land, a period of natural bounty. Alas, this past month has been quite magnanimous for Nightdrive and her fans. While SBTRKT, Thieves Like Us, and our Mission to Mars went off without a hitch, we still have that rag-tag cohort of digital psychonauts known as Azari and III to look forward to in the coming weeks!
In European news, Nightdrive was invited to attend Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), a leading EDM conference and music festival that is analogous to Winter Music Conference minus the good weather and inundated vibe associated with Ultra. And unlike our invitation to the epic failure that was Bloc Weekend, ADE week (Oct. 17- Oct. 21) was simply stupendous with over 1700 international acts and 350 showcases that attracted over 200,000 fans and 3,800 industry professionals from around the world. As Nightdrive’s official EU delegate that conveniently lives less than 30 minutes away from Amsterdam, I took it upon myself to cover ADE. With a potential for 120 hours of continuous hedonistic debauchery ahead, your esteemed reporter had to be very choosey of which showcases to visit. I had to have a unwavering mettle, focusing on maximizing enjoyment while minimizing monetary costs and bodily harm. In the end ADE proved to be a jovial gauntlet through dozens of crowded dance floors that would soon be generously coated with the blood, sweat, and tears of 200,000 ravenous raving lunatics surviving on a regimented diet of Belgian beer, lollipops, hand-rolled cigarettes and caches of drugs large enough to make even Charlie Sheen blush.
The story begins at the Felix Meritis, Amsterdam’s “temple of enlightenment” that also doubled as the Holy See of insanity for that week, where I retrieved my press credentials, an ADE Bible detailing every showcase and conference event, and a complimentary ADE backpack generously filled with pens, lighters, stickers, detox tinctures, and a copy of Mixmag. Though slightly bewildering at first, this random assortment of items would later prove to be quite handy. Seeing as it was a quiet Thursday afternoon without many festival events going on, I went to the nearby Dylan Hotel to check out CNTRL: Beyond EDM, a panel event discussing an up and coming music and technology tour across Canadian and US college campuses.
It was conceptualized by techno demigod Ritchie Hawtin and Loco Dice in an attempt to reintroduce (techno)logical music to the younger generation of American kids. The panel consisted of Dice, Ritchie, the indelible Seth Troxler, festival promoter Carlos Correal (Electric Daisy Carnival, Beyond Wonderland) and Matthew Adell, the wizard behind the Beatport digital store. The gist seemed to be that Skrillex and similarly loathed wubby-dubby miscreants have piqued the interest of American youth to EDM more than any other period in the past. Since America was the birth place of both house and techno, it seems fitting that it should be appreciated by a wider audience. All in all the panel was a convivial affair with colorful exchanges between the panel speakers, especially Seth and Carlos, who could not emphasize enough how the vast majority of popular music produced and listened to (Seth brought up Nikki ‘Mane-gee’, as he called it) is complete trash and that it was our duty as the vanguards of taste to make sure that more people listen to good music. Amen to that!
Page 1 of 3 | Next page