And then a month went by

A month ago I started a whirlwind of concerts, traveling, and family time. Probably the most active start of a summer as I've ever experienced. Multiple countries, multiple states, multiple adventures. There is quite a bit to write about so for the sake of ease of reading/writing I'll just do one event/trip per post for the next couple days to make up for this month-long post drought.

First up: Dirty Dutch vs. The World 2010, Almere, The Netherlands, 19/6

This annual dance festival has moved around the country in previous years, but this edition occurred on a beach located about an hour north of Den Bosch by train. As we're approaching the longest day of the year we were planning to dance the night away in warm comfort and calming wake. Of course, Holland was Holland and it rained off-and-on all day, and got pretty chilly as the sun sank (not completely dark until about 22.00).
The festival featured several DJ stages with large wooden dance floors covering the sand.

This was probably for the best considering Dutch concertgoers don't really understand the concept of garbage cans. Plastic cups, frites cones and little bottles that once contained shots of neon pink energy-booze (called Flugel) carpeted the joints.

Over the course of the day we ventured from stage to stage and back, stopping periodically for a drink or a broodje. Though I enjoyed the various DJ sets, none were particularly memorable. Just plenty of good beats to move to.

One objective was to be in a decent spot under the event's main stage tent for famous DJ David Guetta and a surprise appearance by the hip-hop collective N.E.R.D. The latter weren't even on the program we got at the entrance but had been just recently added to the website, so we were pumped. As it got closer to the time for both of those performances we inched our way closer to the middle of what had become a tightly-packed, tent-covered mass of humanity.

I was reminded of the bars from Carnaval; people didn't really value personal space here. It wasn't the ideal situation for being able to dance. And people were continually trying to push through the group, often with sloshing drinks, even though it didn't ever seem there was room for them to do so. At one point we were behind what appeared to be a gang of overgrown druglords. They did not move when other people pushed in to move past them so the movers were deflected at us. We decided to push-out ourselves before the inevitable electrical fire and mass-hysteria trampling. Guetta had started performing by this point and it was just no fun not being able to dance along.

We found quite a bit more floorspace at the rear of the tent. Guetta played out his hour-and-a-half-long set with masterfully mixed tracks and a number from his latest album, One Love. They were a bit more melodic and sample-based than most of what we'd been listening to so I thought it was a bit more entertaining to dance along with. Afterward we went back out to the smaller stages for even more dancing room and fresh air. We found both, as well as a beautiful, albeit cloudy, sunset.