The 23rd edition of Amsterdam Dance Event! Wow, where do we start? Shall we start with the record number of people who walked the grounds of it (400.000), or with the amazing line-up, the outstanding workshops, the magical and inspirational conferences? It’s hard to pick just one segment of the grand ADE because everything it’s produced at such a high class quality scale!
It’s been our second time at ADE (you can read about our first experience here) and to say that it has exceeded out expectations would be an understatement. The vibe that surrounds all Amsterdam while ADE is up and running is just hard to describe, as words pale in front of its magnitude.
We arrived at Amsterdam on Wednesday, which left us with very little time to salute the city, or get some rest. But what is rest or sleep during ADE?! Work had to be done, conferences to attend, interviews to be conducted. ADE had some pretty amazing things that needed to be discovered.
We touched base with a traditional encounter with Markus Schulz, the man who just released “We are the Light” – an album that needed covering from a different perspective. Or so we thought. So, keep an eye on Radio DEEA’s website, as we will reveal the details this week 🙂 The chat was, as always, very warm and open, Markus himself being such a pleasure to talk to.
From this, we practically teleported ourselves to something that we needed to see and hear: A Keynote with Paul van Dyk. The legend was going to speak openly about his accident, the safety factor in the music industry and … well, the result is just too hard to put into words. The artist was clearly overwhelmed to recall what happened when he fell off the stage and what happened next. The recuperation process, the wait, the endless hours of uncertainty…
We saw an even more humane face of Paul, one that’s not afraid to talk about what happened and who wants to share a story that needs not to repeat ever again. It was a very emotional interview and a very dear one to our hearts.
From Paul van Dyk, we flew to see another Paul. Paul Kalkbrenner. Another top-class German DJ that was writing history in a warehouse, somewhere in Amsterdam. The show was electric beginning to end. As always, he didn’t disappoint and the fact that the audience started singing along is a living proof of that.
“In Trance we Trust” was next on our list, although the myriad of artists was hard to follow. Blimey, you can’t be in two places at once! However, we did manage to see Paul Oakenfold and Andy Moor.
Thursday came with some pretty awesome workshops and talks, like the one held by BT, so we took our time and spent some precious hours at ADE Sound Lab, playing with the musical industry’s newest toys. The evening was marked by Armada Invitees where we got to watch the man of the moment, Armin van Buuren live from his studio. Pure magic.
Friday was spent in good company also, as we attended talks with Orbital and Jean Michel Jarre. Can’t really find the words to describe the feeling of seeing so many legends at one place, sharing their personal experience of making music.
The evening/night was captured by Alex M.O.R.P.H., Paul van Dyk and our fellow Romanian trance DJ, Nikolauss. Awesomeness reloaded, is all we can really say!
We went on being all pure on Saturday with the lovely Pure Trance event, where Solarstone and Giuseppe Ottaviani put on an explosive show and ended the party-time the next day at Awakenings, with the one and only Sven Vath.
Five days of music and knowledge, networking and culture, energy and diversity. This is how the 2018 edition of ADE, was for us.
The organizers have been more than kind with us, the press, granting us access to all the shows and letting us experience the true essence of this event. We do have one regret though … we couldn’t be everywhere :-))
But for that … we always have next year! 😉
