I Love Techno Details...

I Love Techno Festival - Flanders Expo Centre, Ghent, Belgium 

I Love Techno (ILT) is a huge 50,000 capacity Techno Festival held at Flanders Expo in Gent.

I Love Techno Review...

What happens when over 40,000 party people and and an all-star lineup of over 35 DJs and live performers get together in the middle of a small city in Belgium? You have a night that you will never forget! I Love Techno took place on Saturday Nov 13th at the Flanders expo in Gent, Belgium with almost 50,000 in attendance. The energy of the event was constantly pumping and the music was top notch throughout.

As the Gotham crew walked from our hotel to the expo center we could hear the music penetrating through the walls and knew it was going to be a crazy night. Upon walking in we were greeted by an endless sea of people, in a massive arena leading into different rooms which easily held thousands of people each. The crowd consisted of ravers, clubbers, and regular kids who just wanted to have a good time. The diversity of the crowd was very astonishing, I had met kids who traveled from France, Germany, Italy, and the UK all for techno. When they found out I came all the way from New York just for a party, they could not believe their ears. I later learned a small group of people from Chicago and California also traveled for this juggernaut of a party.

Even though I had been to I Love Techno in 2002 I could not help but be amazed. The energy of the people quickly took hold of us and we made way to our acts of choice. I was able to catch Steve Rachmad, Cristian Varela, Michael Mayer and DJ Amok. My only regret was not being able to see Prodigy and Pet DUO because the rooms were at capacity. Luckily, I was able to get a report on the Prodigy with the help of Debby Veldman.

They kicked off around midnight in the Green Room, pumping their blockrockin beats into an area PACKED with people. Shortly after starting, the music stopped and the lights went on. There were too many people in the area and the organization had to close it down. After approximately 30 minutes the show finally continued. Raw and energetic they played heavy old beats like ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Smack my bitch up’. The crowd went completely crazy, and everyone was singing the lyrics word for word. They also played several tracks from their new album ‘Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned’ and showed us all over again how to get down. For Debby, it was the best experience of the whole evening!

As for me, Steve Rachmad was the first act I caught. He had a very clean, upbeat techno set. I then went to see Cristian Varela who from start to finish threw a barrage of pounding tribal techno at the crowd. He ended off his set with his signature "My Body" track which had the entire place dancing furiously. After that I caught the beginning of Michael Mayers set. He played very upbeat minimal that packed quite a punch. It was a good break from the intensity of Varela, yet it still kept us dancing without the come down effect that most bleepy minimal tends to have on me.

I then went to see DJ Amok and the man had no mercy. He just kept pushing harder and harder, getting faster and faster. The entire room was filled with incredible energy. At one point towards the end of his set I clocked him spinning at around 160 BPM. Around the same time he dropped his remix of "Night of the Jaguar" and that just added fuel to the fire for the crowd. After all was said and done no one wanted to leave and people kept dancing, even with no music the crowd refused to leave! Finally we all heard bass... Thumping harder and harder!!! We all rushed to the side room to find an artist who I had never heard of before, JRD, throwing down an amazing hard acid techno set. We all danced for another 45 minutes, then sadly sad good-bye...

Reports on the other acts that I missed came back that Carl Cox and Richie Hawtin had their crowds moving non stop. DJ Rush spun an absolutely destructive set and Pet Duo had a capacity crowd dancing vigorously at over 150 bpm! Unfortunately, Dave Clarke had some technical difficulties and as a result was not able to perform his Live PA to its fullest extent.