[Report] Mayday – Twenty Young (DE) - Partyreport

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[Report] Mayday – Twenty Young (DE)

Date: 30-04-2011
Location: Westfalenhallen, Dortmund

What started 20 years ago, is still alive and kicking, celebrating its twentieth birthday. Who would have thought the first Mayday in 1991 in Berlin would start an unknown revolution in the House and Techno scene, a series of parties that would last for over 2 decades? What started as a ‘solidarity’ party for the Radio Station Dt64 has become a successful recurrent event with editions all over Europe. Since 1993 Dortmund’s Westfalenhallen has been the main location for Mayday, though exceptions are made once in a while. Every year 4 floors are filled with the biggest DJs and live-acts, entertaining over more than 25000 visitors. This year an additional fifth floor was added to the line up for the celebration of 20. The all-star line-up of this area consisted of DJs such as Marusha, Westbam, Hardsequencer, Ilsa Gold, Raver’s Nature and many more. Together with the other four areas the ‘Twenty Young’ floor completed the international line-up containing all styles of House and Techno.

We arrived at approximately 21:00hrs and the Westfalenhallen was already heavily crowded. After we passed the security, which wasn’t as strict as you might expect at such an event, we decided to look around and scout the place out first because of the large complex. We walked around the Arena till we found the access to the other large halls. The first area we encountered besides the market/chill hall was the Mixery Casino where Dabruck & Klein were firing up the crowd with tracks like “Steve Angello - Knas”, a remix of The Prodigy’s “Breath” and several other fine house-tunes. The place was pretty full and the atmosphere was cheerful. This floor was decorated with a lot of silver coloured attributes hanging from the ceiling, including curtains of small silver rings, which reflected the neon-TL-lights very well. Projection screens were placed on both sides of the stage and were complimented with a lot of spotlights. Straight across the stage was the “Mixery Blend” stage, where body paint artists were painting practically naked models in the beers logo colours making them walking advertisements. Of course they got a lot of attention. It’s not your everyday sight.

After being at the Mixery Casino for almost half an hour we decided to continue to the Twenty Young stage which was way at the back of the complex. This floor could be seen as a massive basement. Even though it was a large hall, it had the atmosphere of a small underground party. When you entered you first had to descent some stairs. The view from the top was excellent. You could see a large and spectacular silver Mayday logo was hanging in front of a black cloth behind the DJs. On both sides of the DJ booth, 2 massive projection-screens were erected on which the VJs could project all their weird yet beautiful images. The dance floor was located in the middle of the hall between a frame of metal pillars to which the lights were mounted. In the centre above the floor a large disco-ball was dangling, spreading the lights and lasers reflecting on it. On the right and left side of the dance floor, next to the bars, small tribunes were made. If you wanted to leave the 20Young-dome you had to go to the back of the area because of the one-way-system. This prevents pile-ups near the stairs and keeps everyone safe. While leaving this area you also passed a gallery with all the Mayday flyer posters of the last 20 years. Lots of people were taking photos of the ones special to them and enjoyed the sight of others. Besides the posters there were also various showcases with all kinds of Mayday souvenirs. Multiple stands were placed throughout the Westfalenhallen for those who would like to buy t-shirts, sunglasses and other things.

It was nice to hear the last 10 minutes of Hooligans set with tracks like “Energy 52 – Cafe Del Mar” and his own hit “Meet her at the Loveparade”. But because we still hadn’t seen most of the complex, we first wanted to see the Techno “Empire” and hardstyle/hardcore “Factory”. When we entered The Empire, DJ Gary Beck was exhausting his crowd with massive, powerful Techno, without crossing the line to Schranz. We stayed and listened for a while enjoying the view on the enormous stage consisting out of a large amount of square LED panels. Throughout the hall rails were hung to the ceiling for more lightening. On both sides of the hall the name of the DJ was projected on the curtains, so people could see who was playing without having to look it up in their line-up booklet.

After a short stop we went back to the 20Young dome to listen to the last 20 minutes of Ilsa Gold. They were playing live so we expected a lot of their own songs. Instead of that we got a DJ set like no other. They managed to spin a whole lot of Oldskool Techno House and rave classics like “The Theme from Twinpeaks”, “Out of Space”, “Ravechannel” and “Insomnia” so fast we hardly had the time of recognising them. Before we recognised a track the next one had already passed. And all perfectly mixed. The next DJ was one on our ‘not to miss’ list; Hardsequencer. This guy started producing Hardcore tracks in the early 90s and gained fame with “Braincrash” a track also played during his set. He started his set with banging Oldschool tracks from Fierce Ruling Diva, Outlander and Digital Boys and continued with his own tracks “From Ear to Brain” and “The Dancing Nations” and some Early/Happy Hardcore including “Holy Noise - the Nightmare”. It was nice to see there are still DJs spinning with old fashioned vinyl.

So around midnight we went on, passed Len Faki, which rocked the Techno, and continued to the Arena. We got us a spot on the highest ring with a great view over the whole floor and mainstage. Surprisingly the Arena wasn’t as impressive as 3 years before. This time the large stage was decorated with huge LED-panels and more than 10 multi-colour-lasers. From the ceiling hung huge light-frames with steel wires so they could be lowered and raised again. And last but not least, the large mayday logo was hung above the stage. The DJ playing at the time was Berlins ‘Paul van Dyk’. His trance was received very well by the crowd of ravers on the floor. Seen from above it was like one waving mass. The sound on the dance floor was excellent but high on the tribunes, we only heard the echoing basses. During the small breaks we could hear some of the high tones but to little to distinguish the tracks from each other. The only track we could recognise was the classic “For an Angel”.

After an hour we went back to the 20Young dome because we didn’t want to miss Marusha either. Before she started her set we were surprised by the early techno by Takkyu Ishino. Seemed we missed a great set there. Marusha really knew what the crowd expected and the first 40 minutes she solely played her own tracks like, “Raveland”, “Go Ahead”, “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, “It takes me away”, “Cardinal Points of Life” and “Deep”. It was an opportunity not to miss.
At 2:30 we went on to Outblast vs Korsakoff. They didn’t impress us much with their mainstream HC-set. Not to special and most tracks were already long known. Last we visited the arena once more to notice the place had quite emptied. Were most people in the other domes or did they, just like us, leave early too? While leaving the Arena we heard Westbam playing this years ‘Anthem’. A great ending of the night for us!

Although we missed a lot of good acts like Sven Väth, Jeff Mills, Raver’s Nature, Miss Djax, Angerfist and Members of Mayday, we had a good time. The Westfalen-complex is too large and the line-up to extended to see and hear all artists. We choose to spend a lot of time in the 20Y dome because of the special names there and we were certainly not disappointed by that choice.