Soulwaxmas At STRP Festival

Written by Gijs Liu

As STRP festival is one of the largest festivals in Europe that combines art and technology it’s not strange that it’s held at Eindhoven “The Creative City”. During the past decades Philips’ R&D was located at the Strijp-S area. This location has great historical value and is now re-enabled as party venue and hosts several fairs like the Dutch Design Week.

The first festival weekend hosted concerts of Chris Cunningham and Underworld, with supporting acts by Lady Aida and Applescal. The festival night contracted Die Antwoord, Modeselektor, Chromeo, Monolake and many more. M.I.A. lit up the second festival weekend on friday with Sleigh Bells as her supporting act.

The biggest thing for the BnB crew though was Soulwaxmas on saturday. The Dewaele brothers, the mash-up kings from Gent, brought a bunch of their friends to destroy the STRP festival area with their distinctive blend of all things music.

At arrival it became clear that the festival was divided into three main areas. Area 2 was home of Cursed P, Boemklatsch,  Zombie Nation, Drop the Lime, Slagsmålsklubben and Digitalism. The Light café hosted experimental producers and there was a little place to chill on a bunch of Fatboys.

We arrived quite early to see Egotroopers in area 1. This teenagers Belgian duo(age 14 and 17) from Antwerp played live for the first time ever and they did a hell of a job. Also early on in the night was Goose, who played al lot of their own stuff and you could see everybody was getting in the mood for a good Soulwaxmas evening.

The moment Soulwax hit the stage we were treated to a royal performance of their dance-oriented tracks, played and mixed live. With a riotous collection of electro dance hits, replete with searing synthesisers, growling basslines, pumping drum sections and dance samples, all combined with a great performance. Their hour long set covered several tracks from their Nite Sessions album including NY Excuse, E-Talking and Miserable Girl. An excellent set that had the audience wanting for more.

By the time the 2ManyDJs hit the decks, the party was allready warmed up. During their hit after hit set, they mixed commercial bangers with underground house/electro pearls. The bass was felt beating through everyone’s body while the visuals added an extra element to the performance with both hilarious and intricate animations coupling whatever song was being spun on the decks.2manydjs must be highly recommended because they had this packed crowd completely wrapped and moving like there was no tomorrow. They picked their set-list expertly, blending in underground dance tracks with golden oldies, only to throw in an indie classic. The light show was out of this world and the set list one of the best I’ve heard. Everyone went away out of breath and fully satisfied.

Thanks go out to the STRP festival for a great festival. An outstanding location, a sound system from another planet, nice visuals, well organised bars and clean toilet facicilties made this festival an absolute blast. The incredible bands and DJs only supplemented that and the combination of art, technology and music is a match made in heaven. STRP 2010 definitely was one of the most interesting festivals of the year. We will be back next year!