A party weekend in September

The PvD party clearly was the climax of a party weekend rivaling Ibiza in its intensity: First, Friday night Chris Liebing @U60311 in Frankfurt, then PvD's party in Berlin and lastly on Sunday afternoon Sven Väth and Richie Hawtin at Green&Blue open air near Frankfurt.

Friday night was Chris Liebing's bi-monthly residency at U60311 and since Chris has been so good lately I couldn't resist going despite the PvD party demanding full fitness the next night. Surprisingly, Chris was already spinning when I got to the club at 1:30 am. And how he was spinning! An excellent set, driving, danceable, varied. Then around 3 am Charles Sieglin (of technasia) came on and sucked for about 2 hours. Relief came in the form of Massimo, an Italian-German DJ. Excellent set, just quality techno we have come to expect at U60. after 7 am Chris came back on and just would allow me to leave to catch some much needed sleep. Such an amazing set, again. The tracks were Liebing style, but somehow even better than the last time I saw him. The word that came to my mind to describe it was "intelligent". Awesome. So i was forced to stay until the end at 9 am

After a few hours of sleep it was time to get up and catch the 5 pm flight to Berlin I had accidentally booked (wanted to take the 7 pm but a wrong click and it was done, oh well). In Berlin met with a friend and Vandit night regular at his place, had some food and at 9 we met some more people at this cool outdoor bar named "Strandbar" (beach bar) on the river banks complete with sand and beach chairs. After some drinks we left early to be at Columbiahalle by 11 pm. What an energizing PvD night ensued!! And despite the all-nighter the previous night I turned out to be in rare form

As at the Vandit nights PvD opened slow and mellow to a still empty house, only to step up the pace with the growing crowd. Before you knew it he was going full speed and pulled us along with him, we were out of our minds even at this first part. Such an amazing set and so very PvD, featuring tracks like Motorcycle-As the Rush Comes, Modulation-Spirits, BT-Flaming June (OMG!!). But then came the killer to conclude the first PvD session: the live act consisting of none other than PvD himself and John McDaid of Vega 4, performing 'Time of our Lives' live. It was beyond belief. John put up an incredible show, interacting with the crowd madly. The crowd went berserk and the entire place just completely exploded like I have never experienced it before at any of the Vandit nights or Love from Above parties. Until that night I hadn't liked the song too much, but that performance was so energetic, irresistible, I couldn't help dying . It was pure ecstasy, bliss, insanity.

After that guest DJ Judge Jules came on. I didn't get too much of his set as I rested some from the wildness I had just gone through and chilled with some people backstage. The parts I did get, though, positively surprised me as I had had low expectations. Instead of cheesy vocal house it was very decent UK trance. Well, just after 4 am PvD came back on to conclude the night with another installment of blissful uplifting trance. While he did have some harder stretches, they were by far not as hard as at the late hours at Casino. What he did, though, was play out many tracks from the album, some more than once (also BT-Flaming June again!!), which I thought very OK for a release party. He did one part where he actually played like 5 or so album tracks in a row, including beautiful Buenaventura. I loved that and so did the crowd. The party continued unabated until the very end just after 9 am.

While this set wasn't exactly perfected to my taste – I like it hard with lots of techno – I loved every minute of it dearly. This was easily one of the best PvD parties Berlin has ever seen. Incredible. Can't wait for Friday, when I do it all over again right here in Frankfurt

Well, that still wasn't enough for this weekend. After returning to Frankfurt about 1 pm Sunday I got some rest and then headed out to Green&Blue open air with Sven Väth and Richie Hawtin. Unfortunately, Richie had already finished 2 hours before I got there (which was 6:30 pm). Sven spun a very good set at that time, but only to deteriorate from there. It was all downhill through the end which came at 11:30 pm. The set completely lacked concept, was slow, undanceable, ambient and chill out music with just a few decent tracks sparingly strewn in. no, that wasn't the Sven who can rock a festival like no other if, IF he only wants to. Too bad. So I gladly skipped the after hour at U60 and finally went to bed at midnight to get some much needed sleep, work looming the next morning!

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