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still from that thread, Menno's side of the story
| quote: | Intuition Summer Event & Creamfields (07-07-07)
Last weekend was a turbulent one, in both good and bad ways. On the morning of Saturday the 7th of July I made my way over to Bloemendaal aan Zee for the Intuition Summer Event. After more than a week of non-stop rain, the sun had come out, and everyone seemed to be in a great mood to party. After catching up with a lot of people it was my turn behind the decks. It was great fun to start off early and be able to help build the atmosphere of the party. ID-Ts top notch beach venue Bloomingdale had filled up nicely in the meantime, and the party was already rocking! After my set I had another hour or so before having to head down to the next gig: Creamfields Poland. It was a pity I had to leave our own Intuition event behind (which from the stories I have heard was absolutely legendary, a big thank you to Rob and Michel for helping making it happen), but obviously I was really looking forward to play on a legendary event such as Creamfields.
Schiphol Airport was conveniently close to the venue, so in just under an hour I managed to get myself checked in and ready to fly over to Wroclaw (via Warschaw), where Creamfields was to be held. Once I arrived some fellow DJs and myself were brought to the hotel. Rather than taking a nap I decided to just drop my stuff off and head over to the party so that I could enjoy the atmosphere and see some of the other artists play. After a few stops by other hotels Steve Angello joined by his agent, Hardy Hard and myself tried to make our way in, which after convincing the security there that we were indeed DJs playing at the party (there weren�t enough badges for artists left at the hotel), all worked out. Strolling across the 1km long field where the event was held a couple of times finally resulted in a wristband that allowed me to go say hello to some friends backstage. It was great to catch up with Kyau & Albert, Ronski Speed, Tiddey and a whole bunch of others.
The party was well on its way and the Prodigy had already taken over the mainstage. People were going nuts to classics such as �Smack My Bitch Up�, �Breathe� and much more. They finished around 2:30 after which Above & Beyond took over. It was lovely to be able to listen to some of these great artists in the time before my closing set at the Hypnosis stage. I had the pleasure of checking out Eddie Halliwell and Christopher Lawrence playing there before me, who both did great.
After Christopher it was my turn to close the party from 06:00 to 08:00, as usual I was really looking forward to my set. Unfortunately things didn�t quite go as I hoped. 2 minutes into my opening track the sound was cut instantly. First I thought it was a power shortage or something, but after walking over to the sound engineers things got a little more complicated. From what I understood the organiser had not paid enough, or not at all for the sound. Either way the rental company had asked the sound engineers to turn off the sound, and there we were. A DJs worst nightmare, right up there with bags lost at airports, delayed/cancelled flights and much more. The fact was, I really just wanted to play and party, I even offered to pay what was needed for the last 2 hours in the area from my DJ fee, but they kindly refused and said it was the organisations responsibility. After 10 minutes of arguing, people calling around and the audience chanting for the music to go back on it finally did, played for a bit, and it got shut down again, some time passed and it went on again. Indeed, an extremely frustrating situation. It was finally left on at a lower volume, better than nothing of course, so I started playing again.
That was great fun of course. Both the audience and myself were happy to be �back� haha! A short while later though things went rotten again, as one of the technicians started taking equipment from the booth without any explanation. Starting with the fx unit, and then taking the cases from underneath a playing cd player. Not exactly useful when you are using these things, so I pushed him away from the equipment and asked him what was going on. Apparently this flipped the wrong switch with the technician. Incomprehensible yelling and hard pushing followed. I tried to continue playing but unfortunately the guy just became more and more angry, and seemed determined to make this escalate into a fight. This was never my intention, I travelled all the way over to come and DJ, not to get into useless fights! All I could do was defensively push him away and try to avoid the punches he swung at me. One of these eventually hit me right in the face unfortunately. At some point I thought he had gone away, but then he came back to continue. I did not want to sink to his level by hitting too, and so all I could do was just hope he cooled down. After way too long the organisations� security decided it was probably not such a good idea for a technician to be assaulting an artist, and so he was removed from the area. Finally.
The �fun� continued though. I tried to forget what just happened and look at the bright side: There were still people there to party, there was still sound, and hey � once you�ve worked all those years to get where you are, it�s pretty awesome when you think about the fact that you are playing at such a big party realizing where you�ve come from! Unfortunately the next thing came up: A female stage manager that had just joined the scene tapped on my shoulder and started telling my I wasn�t supposed to be playing. What the hell? Yes, that�s what I thought. But she repeated it so there was no mistake about what she meant. She kept on insisting, and although I am usually a calm person, this really started to freak me out. I even pointed out I was on the flyer, poster, as well as the timetable outside the actual tent. She didn�t seem to understand and continued. As a result I did the one thing I do regret about this story: Giving her the finger. This was an unprofessional thing to do, and I sincerely apologize for doing so. I simply had no patience left and it was my �final resort�.
She had finally left, and after all the resistance I put up I got to play until the agreed set time after all, thank god! After playing my final track and throwing two vinyls into the audience as a thank you for putting up with all of the drama, the party came to an end. After heading down to have a chat with all the party people and sign some stuff, I made my way over to the artist area to find some transport to the hotel. Unfortunately this was nowhere to be found, so Tiddey luckily sorted out a taxi for us. Once arrived at the hotel I took a quick shower, and hopped into the airport pickup, one thing they did arrange very well. I was dropped off at the airport, checked in, slept on a chair for a bit, and spent the rest of the day recovering from the party sleeping in the airplane or on benches in the airports. A quick dinner at Amsterdam Schiphol and I went back to home sweet home. It took me a while to �let it all go�, but when I look back at all of it I suppose it�s just another adventure for the books. I�m sure everyone had better intentions than displayed. No hard feelings, shit happens, and as for anyone worrying that I wont want to play in Poland again: Don�t worry! Of course I will come back! See you at Stadium of Sound in Poznan on the 4th of August, or at Beach Party on 27th of July!
Much love, Menno |
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**Man I'm Pretty**
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