VOLTT Loves Summer

Written by Marijn van Laerhoven

Does VOLTT Loves Summer? Sure it does, but then who doesn't? The fifth annual edition of Bart Skils' VOLTT Loves Summer in Amsterdam featured a mix of the likes of Adam Beyer, Len Faki, Martin Buttrich and Magda on one hand; Ricardo Villalobos, Isolee, Kollektiv Turmstrasse and Matthias Tanzmann on the other. Two stages with a slightly different flavor of minimal techno. Guess what, tickets were long sold out. But when the weather forecast promised nothing but rain, tickets suddenly became available again.

And indeed, when I wake up in the morning it's pitch black outside. Not a very inviting sight indeed, but it would be a first for me to do anything different because of such a lame excuse. Time to get up, wake the party spirits and rally the forces. There was a party to go to. Before I leave home I write a tweet on my Twitter page: “Dear weather god, I am not asking for any sun or warm temperatures, all I wish for is that you keep us dry. Thanks.”. And so I left home for the NDSM wharf in the north of Amsterdam. A year ago VOLTT Loves Summer took place over two open air stages, this year the second stage was moved indoors under the cover of a pretty large tent. At the information desk near this tent one could not only buy tickets to the official after party (in the Paradiso) and some VOLTT merchandise; the cloth VOLTT wristbands of the past two years also made a reappearance, given away for free and going together well next those of Sonne Mond Sterne and Nature One. Unlike most other festivals VOLTT is situated entirely on concrete rather than grass, giving us a solid underground, just in case. The stage of the main stage outside had been moved further forward with the result a logistic barrier would split the frontline in a separate left and right section, and without mid section. A poor choice that the organization will hopefully reverse next year.

Inside I immediately met with my friends, with whom I would be having a great day. On most other festivals we would be dancing our asses of in the front lines, enjoying the music. Today was different. We hanged here and we hanged there, we laughed out loud and we fooled around with each other and strangers. Today was a day of fun and joy, music came in somewhere second place. Was the music so bad then I hear you ask. Not bad, but nothing spectacular either. Supposedly a little late due to taking the wrong bus (yea right), Magda woke everyone up when she dropped her first bomb. Then Martin Buttrich played a nice set while Ricardo Villalobos certainly brought the Ricardo-vibe amongst the crowd over at the second stage in his three hour set. While we did return to check out whether Len Faki would play his hit 'Stranger to Stability' again (he did) and Adam Beyer made people move more intense (he did); the rest of the day we would mostly spend in the second area. The weather outside was perfectly fine, even with some sun, but somehow Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts, Kollektiv Turmstrasse and Matthias Tanzmann just got their crowd winded up more than the DJ's outside ever did.

This year's VOLTT Loves Summer perhaps wasn't the best out of the five but it wasn't bad either. Above all VOLTT Loves Summer was a fun day out, we'll do the raving some other day again. If the clouds had opened up today would have been a very different day, and for that, I'd like to thank the weather god I addressed in my tweet. Only within hours after the festival ended tons of rain was unleashed upon the city of Amsterdam. We have been lucky indeed.