The rain in Spain falls mainly in Amsterdam, well mainly at Dance Valley in 2005!

I’d never been to Dance Valley before & this year had such a wicked line up & for the first time was being held over 2 days, so me & 4 friends Chris, Teresa, Shannon & Jim decided to go & check it out!

We stayed one night in Amsterdam & then early Friday morning we headed out to the Dance Valley site and it was raining hard!  But the Dance Valley crew were ready & handed out hundreds of free plastic rain coats to people & had a Dj playing some funky house at the entrance which kept the wet spirits up.  After a long security check we finally made it to the campsite, set up our tents & headed straight for the dance floors at 1.00pm!

The rain kept falling & there was muck everywhere but it didn’t stop people from having fun.  The outdoor stages had to be cancelled & the big main stage Djs had to be moved inside into different tents, this meant some other Djs didn’t get to play which was a real shame for them.  The best Djs for me on the Friday were Behrouz, he played a wicked proggy tech house set in the Renaissance tent, Joris Voorn LIVE in the Loveland tent & of course Carl Cox who closed the Reactor tent.

I crashed out that night in my tent, woke up a few times freezing, but overall it wasn’t as bad as I expected after all the rain.  Hopefully it wouldn’t be raining the next day, but nah… of course I woke up to more rain!!  How can there be any more rain left up there I asked myself, but hey, that wouldn’t stop me from having fun! …I came here to dance after all!

More clubbers arrived on Saturday, as Friday was limited to 15,000 people, the Saturday was prepared for 60,000 people!  I must say the Dutch really know how to party!  Everyone I met was very friendly & there to do some serious partying & dancing!  Which is very cool!

Saturday too had an excellent line up & eventually the sun came out!  YEAH!!  The outdoor stages were open, but because it had rained so much the Friday & there were more people on the Saturday, the mud was really bad, there wasn’t any grass left, just mud & lots of it & everyone was really dirty!  But who cared, I didn’t, there was nothing you could do about it anyway so you might as well have fun, right?

Carl had this huge outdoor Global Stage, which looked & sounded great & every Dj played great Techno.  I especially enjoyed Chris Liebing & Valentino & Umek’s set.  I made it up to the main stage to catch a bit of Ben Sims set, the sound was wicked up there considering the size of the place & there was a helicopter dropping confetti everywhere which looked cool.  I finally got to see Kevin Saunderson play & was really impressed, he played a lot of stuff early in his set which I didn’t recognise & sounded great, I really liked his energy too & also Anderson Noise’s set, very very nice!  Both of them played in the Concept tent.

I made my way back for Carl’s closing set, it was great to see him & be up on stage watching him play again after 3 months.  He really knows how to rock it & plays for the crowd.  He communicates with them & wants them to have fun!  Unfortunately I found a lot of the Dj’s I saw didn’t do that which is sad, maybe they are nervous to look at the crowds but if they play at Dance Valley they all must be pretty experienced, but how can they see what's working if they don’t look at the people.  All the Dj’s I mentioned here, did look at the crowd, did want them to have fun & did give that little bit extra.  I felt their sets more & this made me enjoy & remember them more.

Music & tunes-wise overall I was a little disappointed as I didn’t heard too much new music that made me go wow, in fact I had a lot of the same tunes.  Good music but nothing that really stood out.  I was also disappointed that Jacques Lu Cont didn’t play as I love his stuff & have never seen him play.

Overall I’d give the festival 8/10 due to the weather but nothing could be done about that, it really was so well organised, the staff & security very friendly, everything was close together, I never queued for the toilet once, the sound & décor great, wooden dance floors in the tents and the Dutch are great people to party with!  Even the campsite worked great, with a free silent disco at night which was hilarious, where everyone danced around with a pair of headphones listening to 2 different Djs playing! Strange but cool!

I’m so glad I went to this festival, I had a great time with my friends, danced for 2 days, learned a lot & have come back fully inspired & I can’t wait for my next gig!!

Would I go back to Dance Valley? Yes - definitely!

But next time I’m bringing a pair of wellies as I had to bin my trainers & next time I want to play there!!  Hehe!

PS. Big Hi to my new friends from Marseilles who I bumped into at Dance Valley, see you at “La Bazar” on 21 st Aug 2005 , I can’t wait!!

P.S. Don't forget to check out the photos! Lots of mud!!!