I LOVE TECHNO - DE MORGEN- Article, translated by Lana Boone

Some nice people requested on the Bloody Beetroots blog on Myspace a translation of the article in 'The Morgen', This is the result I got after translating a while.

Enjoy your reading!



For our Dutch-speaking bloggers, You can find the original article over here.

I love Techno – A night in the underworld

35000 dance lovers are making their way into the crowd to experience a night full of dance.



Underworld: ecstatic climax

Boys Noize played in front of a crammed hall.

Last Saturday, 35 000 dance lovers passed through the night with acts from Underworld, Justice, Boys noize, Digitalism, The Bloody Beetroots and Hot Chip at I Love Techno. In advance, we promised the chief editors to stay clean and to keep away from the brown acid, and we went to Flanders expo in Ghent to experience a night full of deafening dance and fashion fads.



The fact that Belgium has the most fascinating club history of Europe, has already been written down in Last night a DJ saved My Life, but even without the booklore, you could witness this happening last Saturday. The reputation of I Love Techno turned out to exceed its limits.



Conspicuously lots of Italians had found their way to Ghent. As conspicuous as the gold-colored prints on their tight T-shirts, they made their presence clear in the enormous building .



With reliable hit makers as Dave Clarke (again) and Underworld, or popular innovators like Justice (who unfortunately played a Dj-set) , Digitalism and Hot Chip, the line-up of ILT didn’t seem to be reaching their most adventurous edition, but it was clearly one of their most successful.



In front of the most interesting hall, the Orange Room, there was always a huge mass of dance lovers. That room offered us a night full of fantastic acts such as Birdy Nam Nam, Crookers, DJ Mehdi and Justice, all originating from the Ed bangers group, Pedro Winters Parisian label. He once discovered Daft Punk and took over the turntables himself for a while as Busy P. Otherwise, it was very nice to hear him spin the indie collective ‘vampire Weekend’ between those obscenely pounding beats.



In the meanwhile, about 300 policeman patrolled the area at Flanders Expo during a ruthless drugs- control. Zero-tolerance was being read in their crusty expressions, but even that didn’t had any effect on the recreational drugs using around us.



A little further, the Bloody Beetroots (****)took care of a trip at least as effective as those from the last-named in the Switch Room. By sudden moments, the Dj-booth was occupied by at least 5 wicked Italians, who played in turns, house, electro and disco- and furthermore stirred up the crowd uninterrupted. One of the peaks was an accelerated reprise of Daft Punks ‘One more time’, by which the crowd effortless replaced the voice.



As Italian and brilliant as them were the Crookers (****): their set floated imperceptible between electro, house and crunk and offered enough tight beats to keep everybody dancing on the floor for about one hour and a half. While hundreds of dance freaks pressed about each other in front of the entrance, a ten-headed security team had to hold the crush barriers at the front to prevent a big catastrophe. No wonder: the Crookers were seen as one of the most delicious treats for the trendsetters at Pukkelpop. At that time, the shutter shades ( the hideous roll-down shutter shades that Kanye West launched) were just been introduced as fashionable, but this Saturday hundreds of youngsters tried desperately to bring the trend back. Quite expensive off course, such glasses.



The ones who really wanted to be fashionable, were better off to take warning from MGMT: some trendy dancers were dressed up by wearing a bandana, flashy checked shirts and a lick of fluorescent paint on their cheeks.



Others were determined to acquire the nerdchic-look, exuded by Hot Chip. With the last-named British electropopcompagny, the evening took a false start: the mix was so badly adjusted, that their fabulous electropop drowned in a wretched cesspit of noise.



All the better was Boys Noize (****) – The new figurehead of the electropunk generation you can say- who played in front of a crowded hall. While he played ‘lava lava’ the condensate fell of the ceiling in big fat raindrops. His blaring barrage of beats and bleeps contrasted sharply with the unimaginative Felix Kröcher (*), who however, could count on a crowd as big as Boys Noize’s.



Booka Shade (**) brought a nice set, in which electrohouse and minimalistic techno beautifully mixed together, but the duo was programmed totally wrong after the efficient and a bit straight-lined set of Digitalism (***). After a quarter of an hour, a big part of the audience slinked away to see Underworld (****). Towards 2 am, this concert apparently was the climax, the crowd was coming to look after at ILT. The inspiration of Karl Hyde took care of keeping the full attention of the crowd with the help of the 3 dance pioneers.

During the coda ‘Born Slippy’, it came to a certain explosion:

the devoted silence of 1 second between the continuous, deafening applause and a audibly touching “Thank you!” from Hyde, was a moment of pure ecstasy. There was no better evidence than this to see you don’t have to learn an old dog new tricks.

(Gunter Van Assche/ foto’s Alex Vanhee)

Translation: Lana Boone