Ahem. Its official, chaos reigns this summer.
Oreldance was about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on, a huge soundsystem, a castle as backdrop and 3500 up for it party people. I found myself stranded at 6am with my 10 new best friends and not a promoter or hotel room in sight. Oops. We spent the day by the river accompanied by vodka until the lovely DJ Amira plus driver came to rescue me and we raced back down the motorway to Moscow (only) just in time for my flight.
Gurnmills lived up to it reputation the week afterwards - Mashtronic rocked the joint as did Tania Von Pear. I didn't do too badly either, even if I say so myself, and Tania and I finished off the night with some very drunken back to back action, with a packed T2 still whooping and jumping way past closing time.
Then a sublime party at another castle in Russia, this time in Vyborg, a couple of hours away from St. Petersburg. Another few thousand revelers under the stars - Wonderland Avenue and I took the proverbial roof off - well if there had been a roof, it would have come off ;-)
The airline gremlins started to bare their teeth this weekend - a couple of delays and missed connections saw a late arrival in St.Petersburg and an unplanned stopover in Frankfurt on the way back. All in a weekend's work - although this weekend just gone the mogwais were definitely history ...
On Friday I was due to fly to Kiev to play at Privilege, and due to a combination of recent events (see the
news) and a certain Dutch airline's incompetence, I never made it. I wont bore you with the details, but after enduring the delays and missed connections caused by all the current security paranoia, one of the planes I was on broke down mid-take off from Amsterdam. Stranded in Schiphol airport - with literally nothing on me except my passport and the clothes I was standing in (see
this for what I mean) and with no other possible onward connection to Kiev that same day, I had no other option but to go home (this flight was of course also delayed and to top it all they managed to lose my luggage - so it was a fruitful weekend)
It's actually the first time I've ever missed a gig in my entire career. Anyway big big apologies to everyone at Privilege and to those who came expecting to hear me - I hope I will make it back to Kiev soon - as long as events dont conspire against this next time!
Back into the fray tomorrow as I head off to Lubiaz Castle (yes another castle!) in Poland for another big openair do. I'm sharing the bill with Sebastien Leger (one of my fave producers right now) and Germany's Azzido Da Bass - check out the venue pic! So... please keep your fingers crossed for me as I head back into the big mess that London's airports are currently in...
You may or may not know that I used to live in Paris in the early 90s, and during my time there I used to write occasional articles for a little magazine called Eden, one of the first ever publications in France to cover the club and rave scene. It's now being included in a new exhibition at the Visionaire Gallery in New York entitled "Megazines", featuring "back issues, rare out of print titles and the best in contemporary independent publishing". More info here:
