AMSTERDAM DANCE EVENT, HOLLAND Nina Kraviz
FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ZOUK AND ZOUKOUT
01. Zoukout’s curator, and the owner of Zouk, Lincoln Cheng was at the legendary Woodstock festival in New York state in 1969. So it’s safe to say he knows a bit about what makes a good festival.
02. The inside of Zouk is decorated with original pop and contemporary art pieces, including Keith Haring’s final painting The Healing Hand and works by Andy Warhol and Haruki Murakami.
03.
soundchecks start again. Then, a few hours after that, it’s all kicking off.
Paul Kalkbrenner
Lil Wayne’s ‘Banana Boat Song/6 Foot 7 Foot’. As they play, the heat gets them and Diplo and Jillonaire take off first their jackets, then their ties, then their shirts. Diplo drops Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ then mashes it into some dark dancehall, before playing the whole of Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’.
They might not have recognised most of the set so far, but when the crowd hears this, everyone shrieks and suddenly there’s a riot of dancing. Then Diplo stops the music.
“I need some ladies onstage,” he says. “Ladies who can dance. Y’know, do handstands and dance. You know what I mean, don’t you?” Five minutes later there’s a row of women — who’ve jumped onstage from the crowd — all doing upside- down twerking in front of the decks. “It’s just all booty,” shouts a guy in the crowd. At the other end of the beach, while Major Lazer head into their final, confetti-infused, supercharged flourishes, Above & Beyond are halfway through their set. It’s a DJ set, with Pavoo Siljamaki and Tony McGuinness playing. Progressive and pumping, they belt out prog-trance tunes alongside their own ‘Thing Called Love’, which nearly everyone in the crowd seems to sing along to. By the time the festival booms its way into silence, it’s past 4am. Twelve hours later, after a quick clean-up, the
He’s not playing till later, but halfway through Calvin Harris’s set, German trancer Paul van Dyk turns up. “I can’t believe Calvin plays such crap,” says Paul. “His sound is too commercial. I won’t be playing this kind of stuff. I’ve got loads of techno with me.” Calvin’s set is admittedly a little on the “commercial” side, but when he drops Justice vs Simian’s ‘We Are Your Friends’, the crowd goes crazy. It’s hot. The stars are twinkling, and nearly all of the 20,000 people in the audience on the main stage are singing along. Next door, on the Star stage, Maceo Plex is in the final minutes of his set. When he plays his own ‘Stay High’, it’s one of those goose-bump moments. Sets by Nina Kraviz and A-Trak follow. And when the crowd seems to be waning in enthusiasm for Montrealer A-Trak’s hip- hop-infused house antics, he wins them back by dropping Stardust’s ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ and mixing this into his own, co-produced (with the mighty Armand van Helden)‘Barbra Streisand’ (as Duck Sauce).
At around 6.30am the first strains of sunrise streak the black, inky sky with slices of lighter blue. The crowd has thinned but it’s still a packed-out beach. German techno producer Paul Kalkbrenner is playing, and everyone in front of the stage, in the beach bars and all over the beachfront is dancing. His 90 minutes pass in a disco flash and by the time Paul plays his final tune — his own heart-flutter-inducing, house mix of Tears For Fears’ ‘Mad World’ — the beach is flooded in full sunshine.
The cocktails in Zouk are THE best club cocktails in the world. The venue’s infamous Lychee Martini is so tasty that Carl Cox allegedly drank 15 of them, on the trot, in the space of an hour on a recent visit.
04. Before Lincoln opened Zouk, in 1991, he and resident DJ Jeremy Boon hosted parties called Warehouse at another venue in the city that started in 1989. They were the first-ever club nights playing house music to happen in South- East Asia.
05.
Lincoln is planning to open another Zouk club — “probably in Korea,” he says — sometime next year.
There’s a muggy, intense heat in the air as Zouk resident Hong starts playing. Paul van Dyk is finishing on the main stage and Singapore DJ Aldrin is taking his place. The heat rises in line with the sun as Hong plays deep, Latin-infused house. It’s getting close to the end — nearly 8am — and the stage has been invaded by the organizer Lincoln, his wife, the Zouk staff and, erm, DJ Mag. It’s like a 22nd-century scene from hippy movie Hair as the crowd and everyone on stage groove to Hong’s final tunes, including the mighty Todd Terje’s ‘Inspector Norse’. Just as the last few bars play out, a riotous thunder crack splits the sky. And, moments later, it’s pouring with hot, heavy rain. CLAIRE HUGHES
djmag.com 033
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