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Review: Dance Valley 2006 (TOTA invasion)
Well, after spending a week at where I will for sure call home next year, I am back in Toronto  Yes, I am sad to be back as I am every other year I come home as well, but I had great times with all the TOTA's and MTLTA's and NLTA's/Groove Collectors's in Holland.
Dance Valley was obviously the main purpoyse for my visit and I already knew what I was in for. The rest of the group had no idea so it was great to see their reactions to the whole weekend. 
Friday morning we woke up and got ourselves ready for DV. We packed our bags and off we went. We were running a little later than planned, but that was ok. I knew we would be faced with a huge lineup to get through the gates but it was only about an hours wait instead of the 3 from last year and the sun was shinning and the beats were pumping so I was happy. Everything went completely smooth. We got into the campgrounds, got our tents and back out we went to party.
Right away I rushed off to see Danny Tenaglia who was starting at what I thought was 3pm, but didn't start until 4pm. He came out and started out the afternoon well. Lots of fun house music which I was loving and well the amount of beer I had consumed by 6pm was probably another indication of how much I was loving it.  He played a 6 hour set. I had left to go see Preach's set vs. Darren Kay @ about 7pm, but for the first time in my life I did not stay for his whole set. I was only there for about the first 15 min (sorry Philippe) before heading back over to see DT. I was diggin the house music at that time, plus most of my friends were there and since I only really see them once a year, I decided to stay with them. After DT, we headed over to see Prodigy. I actually sat away from the stage and looked on from afar. At this time I don't think I was walking very well on my own after about 20 Heineken and so the boys decided to sit me down and I consumed some food and water before bedtime. I do remember waking up sometime around 4am to hear "work this pussy", thinking and sending an sms to a friend saying, I want to go out and party, but quickly rolling back over and going back to bed. I finally got up around 7:30am and hit the showers for Saturday to begin.
So Saturday morning is finally here. I was up and refreshed and ready to go. I got myself a ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast and had some orange juice and I was ready to go. I was soooo hyped cuz the first DJ on my list to see was Joris Voorn. He is in my top 5 DJ's and was finally going to get to see him. So we go to walk out into the site and boom, we are hit with a lineup to get out. Security checks your bags everytime you go from the campgrounds into DV grounds. It was rather annoying and I just kept thinking that I had better not miss Joirs or I would have been pissed. Thankfully enough I got out with enough time. Headed up to the mainstage to check it out then back down to the Concept tent for 11am. Joris started off his set with a very minimal sound. He got to the half way point of his set and then the tech house sound I love started rolling. I couldn't have been happier to be standing there listening to him. I would love to get the chance to see him play in a club for longer than an hour cuz before I knew it the hour was gone and so was he. He was happy to be up there and looked as if he was totally enjoying himself. After Joris, I headed over to see Marco G for a while in the Loveland Tent. I didn't stay for very long but he was killing it for the time I was there. Then I proceeded over to the Mainstage where I caught the end of Max Graham's set who was absolutely amazing for the little bit that I saw. Danny Howells came on right after him. OMG, I LOVE DANNY IN HOLLAND!!! Danny was throwing it down, track after track. The electro house he plays there and his energy is completely unbelieveable. The crowd was going crazy and lovin every minute of it. After Danny, Hernan Cattenao came on. He started at 3:30pm which I was very disappointed cuz he started off with a bang and it was causing me to want to stay, but at 3:50pm I headed off to the Global tent to catch Cristain Varela play. WOW! Varela has energy like I have never seen before. He had the crowd rocking. Started out with a minimal style and by the end left everyone wanting more. I had to sit for part of his set. I was just drained from the day before and my legs were starting to hurt from 1.5 days of dancing now and knew I had a whole day ahead of me still. After Varela, Michel de Hey came on. I was still sitting and listening and loved what I was hearing, but ended up running into some friends and went to see Morillo about halfway through his set. For some reason I just wanted to hear house and the techno this weekend wasn't doing it for me as much as I thought. I think it was a combination of friends there though that I would rather have been with them. Morillo was off the hook. He was talkin to the crowd, bouncing around and having the time of his life. The crowd went completely insane when Turn on the Music was dropped and a couple others. I managed to get some video footage of that which I will post when I get it up. I was having fun and dancing again and was thankful when the sun wasn't completely shinning down on me anymore cuz man was it ever hot. Well, it was about 7:30pm and I had to leave Morillo cuz I wasn't going to miss Preach on the Mainstage on Saturday.
I got down to the Mainstage to hear Marco V finishing up his set. The crowd was loving it. They were so full of energy and partying up a storm. Marco is very good when he plays in Holland and the end of his set was a little harder than normal. Finishing with Automatic, Preach took the decks. The crowd was very open and welcoming to him and I couldn't even tell you how many ppl were standing there. I could only imagine the thoughts that would have been going through his head at that time, cuz there must have been about 25-30,000 people standing there watching him. He absolutely killed the mainstage. I was soooo excited and soooo pumped. I don't think I stopped dancing for a minute. The remix of Crazy he played was amazing  Dan at one point was laughing at me cuz I was going crazy before the songs even came in knowing every one that was about to be played. lol. I have never been happier to be somewhere at that time. At this time, Dan, Nada, Ali, Haris, Vlad, Richard, Marty, Magda, Nathlia, Bax, Marcus (filming though) and everyone were there with me. Seeing the excitement on faces was just unbelieveable and to have them be there for Preach with me was awesome. We had our Canada flags out waving them around. People were coming up to us and waving them around with us or just talking with us cuz they were completely amazed that we would come all the way from Canada just for DV. Philippe, you destroyed DV. I had a blast and thank you!
I didn't stay for Armin's set since I had to get ready for Panama so I left and headed back to the tent with Dan to meet my friend Phil and we headed back to our apartment, showered and changed and headed to Panama nightclub to see Sander and Sasha play. Just for quick words on that set. Sander played his usual type set, electro house. Sasha played a minimal/progressive set but I was loving it. They also played a B2B set which was unbelieveable. I have always wanted to see these 2 play together and they compliment each other well. After they finished at 5am, it was back to the apartment to finally sit down and rest my legs after 2 full days of dancing and partying. I was soooooo tired and literally slept until 7pm on Sunday night
The rest of my trip just got more exciting from there but that covers all the parties that involved DJ's. There were plenty of more parties, a monkey zoo, dinner with some friends from NL and long walks around Amsterdam at all hours of the day/afternoon/night and partying with the landlord of my apartment. I can't even tell you how much Heineken I consumed during my stay in Holland. Wicked times were had and I can't wait to go back to live there. 
PS. Pics and videos will be posted later in the Picture thread Bax started
Dance Valley 2006
This is Amsterdam - Sasha & Sander K @ Panama
Apenheul Monkey Zoo (I took lots of pics for the killah monkey) 
Our Apartment & The View from it
Random pics in NL
also posted in the picture thread!
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Last edited by magikb on Jul-21-2006 at 12:19
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My last trip to the land from which my folks immigrated from was 2001...next April I'm targetting as my long-awaited and well-overdue return...my Oma nd I have b-days two days apart from each other...plus they're just a few short days before the weekend of Koninginedag (Queen's Day) 
