It has been an enjoyable last edition for this year with an interesting line-up.

We arrived just before midnight at the huge underground Graansilo. With almost no queues at the door, we were on the dance floor in no time! It was already a full house when we saw the last bit of Sicco Bosscher’s set. This young upcoming producer from the Hague just dropped some fine tunes this year and seemed to be very in the mood doing his set in this nicely filled room, wich seemed to be very appreciated by the audience: expressed in cheering, whistling and hands in the air. A nice intro to begin the night with!

Dimi Angelis took over in a fast tempo, playing loads of dark, underground and acid flavored tunes. A bit too fast and dark for us at that moment. The audience danced all right, but they didn’t seem very enthusiastic.

To take it a bit easier and get more into the groove, we walked up to the biggest room, where the hilarious vodka-hooked Wighnoby Brothers started their minimal thing. Like during the re-opening of the Westergasfabric they played a rather hard and underground minimal set, great to warm up with.

After a while we were getting bored with this minimal house, so we went back to the other room where Dimi was finishing his set to make room for the live set of Rotterdam’s pride Jeroen Verheij a.k.a Secret Cinema. After experiencing his astonishing live set at the NYE edition of Awakenings in 2003, he managed to impress me again (big time!) with an almost brand new set filled with heaps of new massive tunes. Loads of crazy screaming bleeps and samples combined with heavy basslines, combined with some old skool tracks in between and some beautiful deep tracks. The crowd loved it and the atmosphere was set. What a diverse set, what a climax, what a talent! Big up and deep respect for this very very talented man! It made him definitely the best act for this awakenings edition and impossible for the other artists to compete with.

Kay D. Smith took over and kept up the force, but his tunes (and mixing skills) were less impressive than those of Secret Cinema. Definitely more a producer than a dj. His own tracks are pretty hard (a bit too hard for me), but his set was more ‘average hard’ with average tunes, but this made his set easy to listen and dance to.

In the other room another talented Dutch producer, Joris Voorn, was doing his thing. His live-set was also filled with lots of new material and can be the best described as deep, intelligent techno with a heavy bassdrum. Nice to listen to, but it couldn’t get the audience to greater heights. In between we had peaked into a long, dark and dampy basement, where the Wighnoby Brothers did their second minimal set, wich was less hard than in the main room.

Danilo Vigorito took it to a higher level in the main room with his catchy hard and funky Italian sound and his great 3-deck mixing skills. Funny thing is that he’s a real Marco Carola look-a-like, only taller. We left the place around 4.30, because my mate was very tired and had obligations the next day, so there was no time left to hear Steve Rachmad and Miss Djax.

It has been an enjoyable last edition for this year with an interesting line-up. The decoration was a bit poor compared to other editions, but of course the lasers were there. Shame there was little room to dance properly and get lose and that constant queues of people were walking through our dancing spot, wich was pretty annoying. A good thing was that the middle room wasn’t the minimal room, so people finally had a proper place to relax. Up to Awakenings 2006!

More info: www.awakenings.nl