I’m back in New York after I performed at two fun European summer festivals. Defqon.1 in a giant event (40,000 people) on the beach about an hour outside of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. It was a daytime festival and it was hot & humid as expected. Since the early 90′s I’ve played in Holland often so each one of these large events it’s a bit of a reunion. I had time to speak to french DJ Manu le Malin, UK producer Surgeon (Anthony Child) and Dutch hardcore producer Gizmo. Even without a soundcheck the show went off without a glitch. My equipment, especially my cases and bags did get throuoully sandy though. The show went from 3-4 in the afternoon so by the time I got back to the hotel it was time for a quick bite and then off to Spain.

The Spanish gig at the Montagood Festival was also quite large. The stage was built high above the audience which I don’t actually like. I really need to get close to people and make some eye contact. My set time was 5-6 in the morning so keep in mind I basically played in Amsterdam and 12 hours later without a real pit stop I’m setting up near Barcelona. Everything would have been perfect with the exception that it started to rain a bit about 10 minutes before my set began. The issue was this was an outdoor event and the only thing above me was open sky! As you know from a few posts ago I just had my Macbook Pro repaired so the last thing I wanted to do was give it a shower. The promoter jumped on stage and put a few garbage bag type tarps over my equipment. The show ended up great and I did a fair amount of jumping down about 20 feet to the crowd and back up again. I know it was about 20 feet high by the 2 foot bruises all over my legs from banging into the speakers I was climbing. The black and blue’s were well worth it because Spain is a country you want to spend time in and a good show will get you invited back.

The only complaint I really have about the weekend was the trip back. In retrospect the situation is hilarious and it speaks volumes about Karma. Long story short, a Dutch group called Angerfist also performed in Spain and they were in my van to the airport. They decided to drink a bottle of vodka straight right before the trip started. Needless to say we had to make a few pit stops so they could puke. God has an ironic way of punishing me.

While I clean the sand and water damage off my stuff check out a few photos…