RECAP: Kingsland Festival 2013

The 30th of April is for many Dutchies a special day, but this year was even more special. Every year the Dutch people celebrate Queensday (which isn’t the birthday of the former Queen Beatrix, but her mother, Queen Juliana), but this year there was a special extra reason to party. The former Queen Beatrix abdicated and her son Willem-Alexander became the new King. To celebrate this, many festivals took place, one of the biggest: Kingsland.

Line Up
With a strong line up, it would be just a matter of time before the festival would be sold out, as it also was a day before. Producers like Martin Garrix, Julian Jordan, Quintino, Sander van Doorn, Sunnery James and Ryan Marciano, Chuckie & the no.1 producer at the moment: Armin van Buuren.

The Atmosphere
Everybody was in a good mood and the people behind the event made everything go well. There was enough space for everyone, there were more than enough facilities and with several stages, the diversity was perfect. Unfortunately the train station next to the event was closed, but they solved this well by giving directions from another train station, so that everybody could get there. In other words, a perfect organized festival.

Martin Garrix
I can say I was totally surprised by Martin Garrix. The young Dutchman who’ll produce an upcoming track with Dillon Francis, who came by to support Garrix, dropped many amazing tracks. Think of “Wakanda” “Hit It” and also some unreleased tracks. The energy of his set was amazing and the pace was really high. With him as third dj on the line up, he might got placed a bit too early.

Quintino
When we talk about nice sets, Quintino comes in as well. The producer played on the biggest stages in the world and produced with the top producers at the moment. At Kingsland Quintino proved his skills once again. With great mashups, energy and especially a lot of fun, he won the hearts of the crowd. He got the people singing at a lot of his tracks and with some great drops, he made many hands raise.

Julian Jordan
Youngster Julian Jordan had a style compared to Martin Garrix, in his set. With a lot of bangers, the talented Dutchman brought a lot of fun to the audience. It is nice to see that the young producers (Garrix & Jordan) managed to stand up and show their potential.

Armin van Buuren
The big announced Armin van Buuren was the headliner of the festival and he immediately proved why. The number one producer at the moment put so much energy and joy in his set, that everybody went completely nuts. In the beginning he played huge tracks like the W&W remix of “This Is What It Feels Like”, “D#Fat” and the Dash Berlin remix of “Apollo”. After an hour and a half of great music van Buuren left the stage and the amount of people in the crowd immediately decreased.

Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano
Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano played their own, different, but therefore much liked style. With more drums, salsa and junglesound, they made the crowd go with every track. It was nice to see the enthusiasm of both producers, who almost had as much fun as the crowd. Where other producers played a track that was played by an other producer already, SJ & RM’s tracks were all unique, making the set unique as well.

Sander van Doorn
Sander van Doorn, in the past more Trancy, but producing a lot of hard Electro House right now, closed the event and did that in style. With some of his greatest productions, he made his set totally van Doorn-proof. In short I can say that this festival can be called successful in many ways, but also thanks to the awesome audience!