05 Days Off Saturday flawed

Report of the 4th day of 05 Days Off @ De Melkweg, 2011

The idea is as simple as it is splendid: invite some people over to play a festival who are all known for their disco/house type stuff, sell loads of tickets, and let everyone have a good time. So that is what the people of Foxex & Wolves, curating this night’s 05 Days Off affair in De Melkweg, tried to do. They invited Hercules & Love Affair, Shit Robot, Aeroplane, French Horn Rebellion, and resident DJs Job de Wit and Tom Trago to play some of that funky music. Not a bad plan on paper, but, dear readers, that is where the plan went horribly wrong.

None of that is Hercules & Love Affair’s fault by the way. The Andy Butler led band has rejuvenated itself with the new line-up and the charismatic additions of Aerea Negrot and Shaun Wright. It is about fun, fun, fun. Mark Pistel and Andy are behind the decks, and in front of them Aerea Negrot, Shaun Wright, and Kim Ann Foxman do their thing. They exhume enthusiasm, a will to entertain, and – forgive me for repeating myself – having fun. Wright is vogueing his ass off, Negrot is doing all sorts of acrobatics, and Foxman is jumping around on the beat. Not to mention that these new additions just have the greatest voices. Wright has this old fashioned disco voice that fits the new songs amazingly, and if there is anything that Negrot can’t do with her voice I haven’t thought of it yet. Not only can she sing the songs, she can sing opera and she could work at a haunted mansion doing all the voices and noises. Every time she opens up her mouth automatically smiles appear everywhere.

Now, this all sounds perfect, and late last year it was when I saw them play the Amsterdam Dance Event. However, the sound set up is less than stellar, which is obvious from the get go. They also can only play a limited festival set (yet there is room for Tom Trago to play before and after the band for an extended amount of time, so why not give half an hour extra to the band?), and they themselves seem at times bothered when the set-up fails to deliver the kind of sound they want. The biggest problem however – and this is a problem that would haunt the festival throughout the evening as far as I’m concerned– is just that it is so damn crowded. How many tickets do you need to sell? Paradoxically, if Hercules and Love Affair is about cutting loose and letting go, then it is physically impossible to do so at this gig because of the sheer number of people. See Hercules and Love Affair with this new line-up whenever you can though, they’re a hoot.

Mind you, the venue has two rooms, and in the main room the crowdedness is more of a problem than in the small room. Perhaps this is because French Horn Rebellion are playing there, and I’m not very enamored with their live act. First of all I don’t find it all that dancey to be honest, and second of all their stage presence is too macho for my taste. After French Horn Rebellion resident DJ Job de Wit spins a few records, and he lets some new stuff hit the dancefloor, amongst which a sort of mash-up with Chromeo. De Wit also plays a reworked version of Discodeine’s single ‘Synchronize’ and Robyn’s catchy ‘Indestructible’. And luckily there is enough space here to bust a move. In the main room Shit Robot is behind the turntables, and when we come in he is wrapping up a song of his own with Alexis Taylor on vocals. After him it is Aeroplane who takes over.

What plagues most sets though (aside from Hercules and Love Affair and Job de Wit for some reason), is the sheer volume on which the music is played. Personally I thought the choice of music by some of the DJs was pretty crude, but if there was any nuance in there it would’ve been drown out by just how high the volume was anyway. There is simply no need for the music to be this loud. I’ll repeat that, there is simply no reason for the music to be this loud. Yeah it is a party, yeah we always want the host to crank up the volume, but this was mind numbing. That along with the sheer number of people just really left its mark on the evening.

For me, most of the sets also didn't seem to work on that really hypnotizing level. Because for me, a must for a really great DJ set is that it has to have a good build-up in it or it has to establish some sort of amazing flow or atmosphere/mood. Though I do want to add that maybe due to the volume and the massive amount of people I might not have noted the subtleties of these people's sets, so if someone thinks, Hey, he missed the boat on that one, please do leave a comment to expand on this account. The sets failed to really grasp me, though perhaps I was also negatively influenced by the volume and by how crowded it was. On which note I do want to give belated props to Motor City Drum Ensemble, who played one heck of a set a few weeks back during Nijmegen’s SoulDrum night, a night of dancing I’ll probably remember more fondly in terms of music than this more expensive night at 05 Days Off, despite the on paper rather impressive line-up.