Nachtiville 2015

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  • It was hard not to expect a lot from the first edition of Nachtiville. For the past 18 years, the organisers have been pouring their heart and soul into Nachtdigital, a dreamy, three-day bash held every summer in south-east Germany that is, according to RA's Will Lynch and Jordan Rothlein, one of the best festivals in the world. (It's also very popular with the Dutch, which explains the team's decision to try their luck in the Netherlands.) I've not made it to Nachtdigital yet, but its reputation was enough to all but assure me that Nachtiville would be special. The premise for the Dutch spin-off, though, was very different. Taking place from November 13th through 15th in Center Parcs De Eemhof, a leafy, family-friendly holiday park 90 minutes outside of Amsterdam, Nachtiville carried all the trappings of a weekender. In many ways, it had more in common with the likes of Bloc in the UK than its German flagship: all the venues were indoors, the lineup had a strong techno lean, and everyone onsite stayed in bungalows. This aesthetic contrast with Nachtdigital was exciting: here was an event guided by the same core ideals and principles, but working within a new and untested framework. The festival's opening night was an early indicator of how good things were going to get. Den Haag's Viewlexx crew had control of The Center, a large, square, carpeted space that served as Nachtiville's second room. Label boss I-F's set of hard-hitting electro, '80s synth wave and Kraftwerk ("We Are The Robots") had the place heaving, before Gesloten Cirkel rattled through an hour of his own crunching techno. His set clashed with Aurora Halal's, so I nipped over to The Joint to catch the last 20 minutes. She was in wicked form, her thumping, misty techno a perfect fit for the dark, smoky sweat-box. The atmosphere at the nighttime venues was only ever friendly and free-spirited, but nowhere was it looser and more euphoric than at The Beach, AKA Center Parcs' tropical, glass-ceilinged waterpark. These '70s-tinged pool parties ran from 2 PM through 8 PM on Saturday and Sunday, and were about as fun as any event I've ever been to. Nachtdigital staples Manamana played all day on Saturday, turning out flagrant house and techno while revellers cut shapes in the water, tumbled head-first down slides and sipped pints of multicoloured slush. Job Jobse went the poppier (and sometimes cheesier) route on Sunday, dropping everything from edits of Adele, Salif Keita and Michael Jackson to Armand Van Helden's "I Want Your Soul." The highlight, though, was the inevitable airing of Dominica's "Gotta Let You Go," which caused an eruption so severe it's a miracle the decks didn't short-circuit. With all-night takeovers from Giegling, Workshop and Golden Pudel, and a main room bill topped by Head High, Saturday night imposed some difficult decisions. In the end, on what was easily the coldest, wettest night of the three, I opted to venue hop, starting at The Center. The Giegling guys got a lot of love in last year's Nachtdigital review, and Kettenkarussell's fantastic live set ensured that they were again a festival talking-point. Head High's workout in The Hall, a sprawling space that stood apart from the rest of the action, was as heavy on rave rhythms as you'd expect, even if the venue didn't quite match the others for mood and lighting. (One girl enjoyed it so much she flashed the DJ—and his girlfriend—moments after he'd finished his set.) There were no such saucy responses at The Joint during Even Tuell's final hour, though end-of-the-night plays for Charlie's "Spacer Woman" and Fatima Yamaha's "What's A Girl To Do" had hundreds of people hollering their approval. I'm not exaggerating when I say I didn't hear a single dud track all night. The superb music continued and climaxed on Sunday night, as the festival was steered home by Optimo and arguably the weekend's biggest draw, Ben UFO. Travel complications meant the latter was moved to the final slot in The Center, leaving J.G. Wilkes and J.D. Twitch to move briskly between cuts of meaty acid, feel-good house (The Black Madonna's "Exodus") and, in light of Friday night's attacks in Paris, an 8-bit version of "La Marseillaise," which segued straight into 30 seconds of The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love." Ben UFO was more subtle in his choice of crowd-pleasers, but his set was still littered with huge tracks. Pangaea's "Hex," Digital Mystikz' "2 Much Chat," Olof Dreijer's remix of Emmanuel Jar's "Kuar" and Art Of Noise's "Moments In Love" all got rinsed, before he U-turned into jungle for the final 15 minutes. Emphatic and emotional, it was everything the closing set of a festival should be. Perhaps more so than any other festival I've been to, Nachtiville did the basics brilliantly. The lineup, the sound, the venues, the bars, the cute, imperfect decorations—it was all on-point. Couple this with the pretty wooded surroundings, solid amenities and comfortable bungalows, and you had everything in place to have a fantastic time. But what really struck me about the festival wasn't logistical; it was the distance the organisers put between us, the punters, and any kind of authority. When I first arrived, I picked up my wristband and walked straight into the festival without so much as a pat-down. Not counting the hired security staff on the venue doors (in place to check for wristbands and alcohol) and the odd, nonchalant lifeguard at The Beach, I can't be certain I saw anyone working for the festival at all. The crowd were left to their own devices, trusted to respect the site and each other. I had expected Nachtiville to deliver on plenty of counts, but I still left on Monday morning astonished at just how free and fun a weekend I'd had.
RA