Party Vibe

August 1998
Courtesy of Marita.

Hi fluffy fluoro freaks,

It’s taken me a while to get around to sitting down and reviewing this years boom, but after getting back from a beautiful holiday in portugal, it took me a good few weeks to reacclimatise. so i’m going to attempt it. finally. =o)

Ehm… well, might as well start at the beginning i suppose. =) timo and i drove down and got there on tuesday evening around 8:30pm. or at least we thought it was 8:30, but discovered the next day sometime that we’d forgotten to change our clocks, and that in fact we were an hour earlier. =) (you can probably tell already that i’m in a rambling mood, so sit back, put yer feet up, and prepare for a long side-tracked story).

We really watched the whole village building up over 4 days or so, that was really nice. there were something like 20 showers this year, 5 blocks of 4 showers, surrounded by a green gause type thing, that offered little or no protection view wise, and although we were there on tuesday, the generator wasn’t really going fulltime until wednesday evening or thursday sometime…. which meant you had to keep a close eye on the water and run in there as soon as you saw it come back on. =) and yeah, like chrissie mentioned in her review, i was quite amused that the majority of people took showers with their swimsuits on. *hihi* =o) one thing though, thursday evening in the shower, i stood on a wasp. the little blighter took great pleasure on shoving his arse, containing sting, as far as he could into the sole of my foot. luckily sylvia had some anticeptic cream, and although it pained me most of thursday, by the time friday night dancing time came around, i was in perfect foot health again. =o)

We kept running into ppl around the campsite that we knew from last year – both list, and non-list members. and probably the best moment of all was when we met monbaza and his beautiful wife, sappho. there was this instant inaudible ‘click’, and we had such fun for the rest of the festival. =) i don’t think we stopped laughing once. *massive* hugs to you both monbaza!

Anyway, on with the story. =)

The 604 meet
============

This, i must say, was such a laugh. or at least, i was having a right creac!! (irish for having *great* fun. there’s just some words you can’t express in english sometimes.) i’d already run into quite a few ppl on the camp site like jason creak, mike, vadim, thew & sylvia, matt ‘n’ rem, ben & dom, monbaza, sam (chaishop), & amit, but the actual gathering was excellent. ‘successful’ sounds a a bit clinical for this. this was downright wicked!

Timo and i arrived there a wee bit before 5 on friday as planned, with our poor old sheet with the dots in a 604 kinda shape (photo available from our boom piccies from last year) and set it out on the ground in the chill out. first person to home in on it was avi. =o) after that i can’t remember who arrived when, but i know that denis, carsten, mistr (i’m sorry, i’ve forgotten your actual name! =o/ ), vadim, avi, sam, chrissie, andreas, rene, matt, remko, maarten, thew, sylvia, monbaza, matteo, amit, jason, mike, bob (who arrived late, and unfortunately, i didn’t get a photo of), timo and lil’ old me were there. (and i’ve just heard that jean smog was also there – he’s even in one of our photo’s although he’s got his back to the camera. jean – wtf didn’t you say hello! i had been wondering where you’d gotten to. turns out you were 5 meters away, and i didn’t know!) =o)

It was a wonderful get-together! =o) and then…. about every second person started rolling a joint, and about half an hour later, you couldn’t pass a joint without someone handing you another! we were pretty smoked out, but it was *such* good fun. i got photo’s of (almost) everyone (with the exception of bob it seems, and the skakti’s, cuz they never showed up), and they’re for the viewing on timo’s homepage

(mitsunori – i kept an eagles eye out for you, but couldn’t spot you anywhere. are you sure you wore your rasta headband?? ;o) )

(mandala – sorry you didn’t make it either. what happened?!?!)

And for anyone else from the list that was at boom, but didn’t make it to the meet, it was a great pity. but, maybe next time. ;o)

Anyway. on to the party report.

Friday night
============

I’m going to to through the line-ups very quickly, this mail is long enuff already. friday started off with cheve – a portugese dj, who played pretty okay. he did play a kent friedman (mindwarped) track (available on the new boom records compilation – double dipped) that got the first whoops of the festival. the crowd loved it! =) (congrats on that one kent!!) after that came on our own monbaza, who kept the crowd going strong with some classic tracks! jikkai, from portugal, were the first live act, but i’m afraid they were way too weird for us, so we went up to the chaishop to visit sam for a while. adam from ceiba came on after that, and drew us all back onto the dancefloor. (nice set adam!)

Quirk live were up then, but whether it was me or wot, i wasn’t crazy about them at all. they just weren’t right for that time of the morning (5-6) and i think i ended up sitting down through most of it. antaro was supposed to play, but he couldn’t make it at all because of back problems, so this wee kiddy (don’t know his name) played from 6-9. you could barely see his head looking from the dj booth. =) but at this time the gram of hawaiian that i did were kicking me hard, and i was having a very confused, albeit enjoyably confused trip. (one of those where i could’ve gotten very afraid if i hadn’t been more experienced in tripping. but i was able to mentally slap myself and say ‘cop on woman, you’re tripping your face off – of course your head is all over the place’)

I should do a bit on decor here i suppose. the decor was *so* beautiful. fluoro dragons and mosquitos and bits hanging from all the trees, and inga’s most *fantastic* backdrops. you might be able to get an idea from the boom photo’s on timo’s page. we tried to capture it as best we could, but sometime’s it difficult to capture such images on camera. it really was another world, a complete fairyland. the dj box was in the design of a ufo, i thought it really added to the whole atmosphere of the party, rather than dj’s and live performances being up on a high stage almost above the dance floor. this was cool, the dj’s were able to interact more with the dancers.

The photon projections were, as last year, amazing. they had a *huge* screen down the left hand side of the dj ufo (as you’re looking at the ufo). the screen must’ve been 15 or so meters long by about 6 high. it didn’t so much ‘dominate’ the dance floor, but lets say that everyone was *very* aware that it was there, and i for one, along with many others i’d say, used it as a landmark.

And this was what completely threw me that friday night as the hawaiian’s thundered through my subconscious and played mad tricks on my mind and eyes – as soon as it got too bright for the projections anymore, they pushed the screen all up together, like you would a curtain. so one minute it’s there, and i know where i am, and the next time i look up, i can’t find it anywhere. so i’m spinning circles in the middle of the dancefloor not knowing not only who i was or what nationality i was or language i was speaking, but also not knowing *where* the fuck i *was*!! i kept searching for the landmark, but it couldn’t be found. at this point i sat down, because i knew i was lost. =) but i didn’t have to worry, i was surrounded by friends, whether i’d ever met them before or not. smiling faces everywhere. nothing to worry about.

We retired back to the tent around 7:30 or 8 though, with me simply following timo as i still hadn’t worked out where i was, so i missed quite a bit of this wee kids set, and missed adrian completely.

Saturday night
==============

Saturday night started off with david from sweden, followed by chika from japan, but i didn’t find either of them very interesting. they kind of plodded along, didn’t play very energetic tracks at all. but then! pleiadians came on, and that was really amazing! i found i.f.o. to be too much of the same thing, but now i realise that it just probably has to be played on a fuckin’ loud system!! these guys were really excellent!

But after that came what was for me probably the best set of the whole festival, domino. man, did she *play*!!! this is only my second time hearing her play, but she’s up on the top of my favouristististist dj’s list after that performance! =oD

After domino came koxbox, and wow, what a performance. they mixed their set so that one track just melted into the next one, but played a huge mixture of their stuff, old and new. they were really something. next up was frank-e himself, and he also played a wonderful set. i stayed as long as i could, but retired back to the tent again around 8:30 or 9, so we missed migas’s (portugal) set.

I think i probably enjoyed saturday ‘night’ best of the 3. there was a very good atmosphere there that night, better than friday i thought. but then, that could also be attributed to my ‘mental’ state again.

Saturday night was 2cb night, and i must say, i’d swap mushrooms and acid anyday for the experience i have on 2cb. all the visuals, none of the confused headfuck. so yeah, i was running around being an absolute ass, laughing my head off – especially to people’s reactions to walter the eyes, wishy the troll, & bob ‘you’ve been bobbed’ (cheers jason c =oD ).

Thew & sylvia (neuronautic institute) finally had a decent setup and a screen to themselves. on friday, they’d been sharing the huge screen with photon, and it was very difficult to see the projections especially as the big screen reflected the blacklight. but this time they were much better set up. unfortunately, the equipment they had was minimal…. even one of the buttons fell off the mixer.. (maybe chewing gum’d work thew? ;o)))) but in spite of that, thew and sylvia jammed all night with their video footage mixing at a mad rate, and produced some great stuff! we really had fun with them around their little cage that sylvia had decorated with all the fluoro bits and pieces. =o)
see thew in action here

Sunday night
============

Sunday night opened up with gunther. we caught the end of his set, but he had to play to a poor dancefloor in comparison to friday and saturday. well, it’s to be expected i guess, as a lot of local people might not come along on sunday night what with work, school whatever the next day. after gunther, our man matt was up. i really enjoyed his set as usual!… but then, i know a lot of the tracks he plays really well, so i’m a bit biassed. =) but he did pull the crowd in and the floor quickly filled up.

And then… the moment i’d been waiting for, psychopod live! and i wasn’t disappinted! he played an amazing set! …and highlite of it all – friagram! horray! ===o=o=o)=o)o)o))) i was hopping about all over the place! /me was in her element!!! =o)

Ollie wisdom was up to dj after psychopod, and was *wonderful*!! what a set the man played. i *really* enjoyed when he stuck on cosmosis – spores from space. the crowd reacted fantastically! (big thumbs up again mark_h!!) talk about pumping energy into a party, he never let up once! later on he also played ‘down at the crossroads’, and he really knew how to read the crowd. from what i could see though, space tribe never did play live. i think ollie just continued on. but he was enjoying it! he had the biggest grin on his face throughout the whole thing. =o) and i’d love to know what the last track he played was. it had some irish traditional stuff – the chieftains actually, and everyone on the dance floor loved it. =)

The half acid tab we’d taken earlier wasn’t kicking in at all, so a while later we took the other half. an hour later, and i wasn’t even feeling rubbery, so we said, fuck it, and did another whole tab each. -ahem- well. right. awaaaaaaayyyyyyy weeeeeee goooooo then!! ….eeeeeeeeerk….. 8o)

Max from etnica was next up, and okay, i was tripping, but fuck the man performs on stage! not only was his set totally awesome, but he sang and physically demonstrated every tweak bleep ping and twang that came out of the speakers! what a performance! scary looking dude though, well, i thought anyway. but very entertaining…especially when he’s doing his chicken dance…. =o/ =o))

Anyway, he rocked the place until 9 that morning, and then avichay avigal from israel took over the decks. he played very well, but to me, he was nothing in comparison to max or ollie. we took it a bit easy at that time, danced a bit, sat a bit, found everyone we’d lost during the night and caught up on what each other’d been up to. =) …watching that guy with the sticks dance around – he was amazing… and kept a bit out of the sun. =o)

And at 12, gunther took over again. =o) granted, i didn’t think much of his mixing at this point, but he did play very light hearted bouncy music, and he kept the dancefloor full until 5 that evening…. although from about 4ish on, i could be found sitting in the shade stuffing my face with icecream. =o) i forced myself to dance for the last few tracks okay, but to be honest, i was shattered. =o) …and i’d did my ankle in at some point during the night, but of course didn’t notice it ‘too’ much until i started to come down a bit off the acid…. *man* did it hurt!

Atmosphere on the dancefloor all sunday morning was great – everyone was giving it their all for the final night/morning, lots of smiling faces all over the gaff. and all of us completely smeared and covered with dust. =o)) oh what fun it all was. =) the sprinklers were well appreciated this year as well. =)

But yeah, i think i’ve finally written enuff on my boom98 experience.

Big thumbs up to diogo, pedro, alf, and all the others that pulled their weight to keep the whole thing ticking over, least of all the dj’s and performers of course.

Oh! one other thing, it seems the kindergarten was a massive success! and it was very obvious on sunday morning – kids with multicoloured hair walking around the dance floor handing out boiled sweets and lollypops to dancers! it brought a smile to every single person’s face, and the sweets did the tastebuds of a very dusty mouth the world of good as well. =o)

Right, enough already! =o))

Sorry for going on so long, but when i get started, there’s no stopping me sometimes.

Last but not least, warm smiles to all the listers that we met there, you made the whole experience extra special!

big smiles,
=o)
marita.