Last week was one of our favorite weeks of the year, of course we’re talking about ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event). With hundreds of events across Amsterdam there was enough to choose from. On Friday we visited Martin Garrix his sold-out party at the RAI Amsterdam, produced by E&A Events. We’ve captured all the action in a party-report, check it out!
Darkness
When we enter the building it’s already packed. Beside Martin Garrix there were more great acts on the line-up like Justin Mylo, Blinders, Brooks and CMC$. Walking into the arena CMC$ is behind the decks. First thing, we notice is that it’s dark beside some spots in the middle. It took us a little while before we ‘saw’ where CMC$ stood. Next one to take over the dj booth is Justin Mylo, a familiar name and truly a talent within the scene. We hoped we could see Justin play, but unfortunately even during his set the lights wouldn’t really go on either. Justin plays a good set and people dance a little, but because of the darkness there is still not really a party vibe in the RAI. It feels like the organization completely focused on creating a party-vibe during Martin Garrix his set, which makes sense since he’s the headliner, however in our opinion the rest of the acts before Martin deserved a lot more ”spotlight” than they got.
The Martin Garrix Show
After Justin Mylo his set there is a little break I guess for some final changes to the stage. Martin his set starts about fifteen minutes later then the timetable said. After some hours in relative darkness it’s finally time to light up the stage and to hear and see Martin Garrix play. The moment his intro starts the stage lights up and the huge stage with LED screens and his logo in the middle of it appears. From that moment on the crowd is going crazy. Fans are singing alone with every track he plays, even the new ones from his BYLAW EP like ‘Waiting for tomorrow’ with Pierce Fulton. The temperature rises quickly and not only because of everybody jumping, also huge flames are rising up from the stage. Sometimes during the show you don’t know where to look, his new visuals all over the stage in combination with lots of lights and lasers are amazing. During his set he’s only playing his own music. There is a good balance between older song like ‘Virus’ and ‘Animals’ and newer/unreleased songs like the one with Ed Sheeran and his new one with Dyro. Name any Martin Garrix song, there is big chance he played it. About fifteen minutes before he supposed to end his set he already plays his final song ‘High on life’, the fans sing as loud as they can for one last time. We have no idea why he played half an hour shorter then he should play. He played a good set but in my opinion his set could be more exciting if he played some mash-ups with song from other artists. But the real Martin Garrix fans couldn’t ask for more.
Time to go a little harder
A lot of people leaving after Martin his set. But we’re curious what Brooks could show us. Luckily the lights stay on this time. He plays a fun set with lot of his own tracks, but he also knows how to surprise us with songs like ’17’ by MK and with ‘Cinema’ by Benny Benassi. The crowd still enjoys the party, everybody keeps on dancing and singing along. He closes his with his remix of Scared to be lonely.
The last dj of the night is Loopers, from the start he’s ready to go a little harder. We love his sound but we had to save some energy for the last two days, so we left a little early.