The Amsterdam Music Festival was a great success last year. Dance music lovers from all over the world hopped into a plane, or drove thousands of miles to the capital city of The Netherlands, Amsterdam.
Literally the epicentre of dance music when it comes to top DJ's. This all because they wanted to visit the Amsterdam Music Festival. A festival where the biggest names in the dance scene gathered for an unforgettable night of electronic dance music. Last year the event took place in a completely sold out RAI Amsterdam. Because of this enormous success, it was only natural that it would come back this year for a second round of raving. A bigger line-up, a bigger location and more visitors.
The Dutch top dance event organizers ID&T and ALDA events worked together once again to organize an event that no one would forget. A journey through the world of electronic dance music! This time around the line-up consisted of the huge names: Armin van Buuren, Dash Berlin, David Guetta, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Hardwell, Martin Garrix, W&W and for the first time a Hardstyle DJ, Wildstylez! Deorro was added to the line-up for being the 'highest new entry' this year. The VIP area line-up consisted of the names: Deorro, Dannic, Oliver Heldens and Omnia.
There were some disappointed ravers, but even top dance event organizers can't always make every single visitor happy. Cut ID&T and ALDA events some slack, they did a good job in my opinion. You can't complain about a line-up that has five DJ's of the top ten DJ Mag Top 100 List of 2013, and Martin Garrix who entered the top five on the number four spot. It's time to party heavily and close my Amsterdam Dance Event week better then ever!
Because of the results of the DJ Mag Top 100 List, there was no timetable available. When we got into the huge ArenA, Dash Berlin was opening the event in an already packed ArenA. He did this in a phenomenal way! Ravers were screaming and jumping like crazy on the tracks that Dash played, resulting in an unforgettable euphoric feeling. Next up was David Guetta. Although he dropped a few places in the DJ Mag this year, I saw his set from above and saw a lot of people enjoying the moments on hits like Lovers On The Sun. It was time for the performance by the highest new entry: Deorro! I was secretly hoping for Oliver Heldens. Why? Because I needed some change in the music genre of tonight. But, no deephouse for me. But Deorro blew the roof off the ArenA.
The moment we all waited for. Who is the number one this year? With amazing visuals we counted down starting from number 10. The names of the DJ’s followed by a short version of a track. And then it all came down to that one moment, the number one! Was it the Dutchman Armin van Buuren? Was it the duo from Belgium Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike? It was off course, like all the rumours said, Hardwell again! For the second time in a row, it's the Dutchman from Breda. After a big thank you speech it's time for the number one DJ himself to entertain the crowd. A crowd with people from all over the world, packed in one stadium just to see him killing it behind the decks! Flames, lasers, amazing visuals, people dancing, screaming and jumping with hands in the air. Flags from countries raised as girls climbed on the necks of guys. Yep, Hardwell killed it once again with tracks from Alesso like 'Heroes' and his new track with Fatman Scoop and W&W, 'Don't Stop The Madness'.
Armin van Buuren was up next. He played a set with almost no mainstream EDM. I do love the mainstream songs, don't take me wrong, but it was very refreshing to hear something else for a change. The 'five times in a row' winner of the Top 100 list is number three this year, but that didn't stop him from making it one hell of a set!
Martin Garrix was welcomed to the stage. The new number four of the DJ Mag Top 100 List! What an amazing set it was, in combination with the fire and lasers, everything fell into place! But, lets be honest, a lot of songs were played before already, so I had a little bit of a deja vu. There weren't any surprises in the set of the DJ's tonight. This upset me; we're talking about the top DJ's in the world right now. I would've loved to see some more effort put into the sets, not just the mainstream songs every time.
It was time for the duo from Belgium to show us what the new numbers two of the world got for us. The Tomorrowland residents got a lot more fans this year. Like Mike always makes it a huge party by being a DJ and MC at the same time! W&W took over the stage followed by someone with a different style. For the first time on Amsterdam Music Festival, a hardstyle DJ: Wildstylez! Although I'm not a hardstyle fan, it was very nice to hear something else after hearing a lot of bigroom all night. Even a bigroom lover like me doesn't want to hear 'Tremor' every hour. Wildstylez definitely took the time to figure out a way to entertain the house lovers because his set did contain less hard tracks as well. He builds it up from housy-hardstyle so he could slowly take the House ravers with him in the stream of hardstyle. The ArenA was still packed, but wasn't packed as much as during the other sets, so there was enough room to let loose and throw out the last bit of energy the crowd had left in their bodies!
A festival packed from start to finish is what this festival was. With the amazing special effects, the best of EDM and party people from over more then 70 countries, this was a musical spectacle like no other. The organization did a great job with this second edition of the Amsterdam Music Festival. Although this was a sold out event, there was enough room to dance and enough room to sit down and chill out for a minute. There were loads of different drinks and foods available, and for the ravers who wanted to take a memory of this event with them, there was enough merchandise available such as t-shirts, caps and bags. The prices of the drinks weren't ridiculously high in my opinion. For the ArenA, I've seen worse. The very handy system of buying a card with money on it worked fast. There were no long lines for drinks and foods. If the DJ's put more effort into playing new and refreshing tracks instead of all the hits from last year, I would have nothing to complain about.
I certainly can't wait for the next edition already. Which country are you from? Were you in Amsterdam for this event and would you come back again? If you weren't here to celebrate this big event with us, will you make sure you will join us next year? Let us know!