What a trip it was, great banter all the way through from start to finish, Thursday night to the Sunday morning was nothing more than a blur… what started off as a few ‘quiet’ drinks in the hostel on the Thursday night turned into chaos as happy hour was introduced and, I quote, “what’s so happy about happy hour?” Basically €1.50 beers and equally cheap Jagermeister… aw naw. Lets face it, it was pretty much game over from then on, we went out to watch the Celtic vs Hamburg Europa League match, which as I recall at the time being utter gash, we left to get munchies and I ended up having the best noodles I think I’ve ever had while certain other people opted for “Chhhiiiippppssss” – tell you what, the Dutch and the Belgians LOVE their chips.

The Amsterdam Dance Event itself (a 5 day and night thing), tremendous, we only took in one performance at the Heineken Music Hall on the Friday night that started out with Groove Armada then Deadmau5. Groove Armada were beyond tremendous, they performed a lot of new material and threw in the odd classic like Superstylin – Deadmau5 should take a lesson from them on how to work a crowd, every single person inside that arena was dancing from start to finish… then Deadmau5 came on… and what started off like a good set with a couple of new tracks from his latest album before throwing in an odd classic such as The Reward Is More Cheese turned into an utter bore, I know the guy is a minimalist electro house producer but jesus christ, awful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan and have been for a long time, I saw him in Edinburgh in 2008 and he did nothing but chuck out tune after tune after tune that night but at the ADE it just wasn’t happening for him… his Macbook even crashed!

Got a taxi back into Amsterdam city centre with some other random guy who was kicking about from the gig, he sat in the front seat and did nothing but paint the side of the car the whole way back… ‘lol’

Saturday was harsh, we had to be out of the hostel early doors before getting a train through to Brussels where we would be staying in a quality little basement flat for a few days before returning home. Probably just as well we left Deadmau5 earlier than planned otherwise I doubt I Love Techno would’ve happened for us; we were burst all day so just wired into Jupiler (probably the European version of Carling) with a few energy drinks for good measure and got back on the wagon. The event itself was outstanding, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, 35,000 spread out across 6 rooms, all there to have a good time and not the slightest bit of trouble… apart from a couple having a bit of a domestic and literally knocking the shit out of each other, again… ‘lol’… highlight for me at ILT was definitely Vitalic… lowlight… having to sit in a train station for 2 hours to get the train back to Brussels from half 5 in the morning.

Definitely would like to go to that again next year, maybe without half ending myself in Amsterdam the two nights leading up to it though.

It was good having the extra few days in Brussels after ILT to chill out and take in the scenery, its a really really nice city, and anyone wanting to have a decent night out there could easily have one. One word. Delerium. Two words. Ginger Nicky. And six more words. Davie Howatson what were you thinking? “SSSAAAANNNNDDDDDYYYYYY”

I’m still trying to figure out what would’ve happened if there actually had been a reservation for Davis :/