Looking Back At ADE – Day One: Protocol Recordings Label Night

Location
De Melkweg is a popular venue in the Netherlands and voted as nr 97 in the Top 100 Clubs in 2013. You can find two stages inside and especially the mainstage is quite large. There are more than enough bars on the sides of the dancefloor. On the steps you had a nice view over the audience and of course on the performing dj’s. The location definitely gave a good twist to the event.

Line Up
You can surely say that the organisation arranged some big names for this event. Think of Vicetone, Don Diablo, TV Noise, Cash Cash, Martin Garrix, Blasterjaxx, Nicky Romero & Dimitri Vegas + Like Mike. This means the number 6, 7, 40, 60 & 71 of the world. Of course these are just numbers and all the other dj’s proved why there weren’t selected without a reason. Every individual artists made the people raise their hands and sing along the famous songs. It was a varied and skillful lineup.

Special Guests
During labelmaster Nicky Romero’s set he introduced some special guests, that weren’t revealed before the beginning of the event. It started with Legend Award winner Tiësto. The crowd went absolutely bananas when seeing the first special guest and even though he didn’t perform that long, it was definitely one of the highlights of the night.

When Romero played his charthitter ‘Symphonica’, it was time for the second special guest to appear. Violinist DSharp performed violin support on one of the biggest tracks Romero created. It all fitted together so well, it made perfect sense on this track. The crowd enjoyed the track even more and with the energy that DSharp putted into it, he improved the act in the right way.

The producer who sort of discovered Nicky Romero was Dutchman Fedde Le Grand. The worldfamous producer, of course still in the top 30 of dj’s worldwide, played a part of Romero’s set and made the people go right from the start. With some insane tunes, mixed perfectly, people couldn’t stand still for even a second. It showed the never decreased popularity of the veteran producer, who keeps on hitting the charts.

Audience
I wished I could say something different, but the main stage was too crowded. People were getting moody because of the enormous bustle and people started pushing each other for some more space. The other stage was way more relaxed and a little less crowded and provided an absolute perfect variation on the mainstage. The organisation of course can’t control this situation and the whole audience was enjoying the insane music that could be heard all night. I think that at the end, everyone had a very good time.

Conclusion
When we take a look at all the points, we can only find one critic point, the atmosphere. The rest was all organised very well and with the great lineup, the very special guets, the sick venue and the audience, it was an enormous party. It gave the perfect kick off for the ADE week and made us very excited for more!