Electrophonies
Lille, France

28th June 2003

What an excellent weekend by the way.

Saturday morning started rough, after a good party in Rosyth, Scotland called Impact. Back at Visions where the legendary Nosebleed was held in the mid 90's. Excellent party with a good turnout.

In the morning I was still drunk when I had to leave for the airport from Boony's in Edinburgh, I was in 2 minds whether to actually go - I don't know anyone over there, will they speak English, will I get paid?, will my tickets be at the airport etc. But I decided to go for the experience. And what a good choice that was ....

Tickets were there, but they had me returning on Monday at 4pm. Didn't fancy staying in France an extra day, so changed my ticket to come back on Sunday. I regret that now !

Arrived in Paris and come thru the arrivals and a lad was there to meet me (sorry I forgot your name) and he is holding up a sign saying "G Peterson - Breast". I walk up to him and point at the sign and laugh. He Didn't speak English (My e mail address has "Breast Mechanic" as my display name which represents a T-shirt I have with 'Breast Mechanic' on it. They Didn't know what Breast meant. Also a French girl was at the airport who spoke English, nice. It was 2 hour drive to Lille in North East France near the Belgium border, so I got a bit more shut eye and we arrived around 5:30pm I think.

We went straight to the party, which was in a medium sized stadium with 2 area's, 1 drum & bass on a big field and the hardcore/hard-tek area was on a gravel type football pitch. Lots of various kiosk type things selling CD's & allsorts.

 

Got took to the VIP area, which had a sort of covered tent with free Stella Stella on tap, boxes of wine & various pieces of fruit. There was also a separate part which had food - pasta , spaghetti and a traditional Lille meal of minced beef baked in ale. tasted OK.

Here I met a few people who spoke English. Another girl who was friends with the girl you picked me up from the airport (sorry I forget your names, if you read this please tell me so I can include them!!). Also an oldish fella with a beard who was funny. Another guy called Yan took me to show some sculpture's he had made. He had made these crazy magic mushroom which were on the drum & bass stage and also these. YOu cant see it, but on the right is a sculpture of Yan's head in the bubble !!

 

Congratulations on Yan becoming a father also !!

Back at the VIP area I met these evil looking skinheads. Fortunately they were not real facist skinheads but very nice people indeed...

I forgot most of there names too: ??, ??, DJ Meuj (1 gramme), Alexus, ?? - If you boys read this, please tell me your names !!

Spoke to these for a while and they took me to the centre of Lille to a place called 'Wazzam' I think. I explained what a 'wazz' was in English, which means a 'wee' wee' or piss, so I was saying they lived in Piss City which amused them (I hope !!).

Walked passed this strange building with 'BUT' on the roof. I think it made toilet paper !

DJ Meuj's dog, Boomer, which looked like one of Chewbacca's cousins...

We went for a couple of pints in this nice outside pub and met lots of other people...

I forgot there names. The boy on the left I named Dr Gabber, as he is a doctor and makes gabber music. Everyone greeting me in the traditional French way. A "Bonjour" with a kiss on each cheek which startled me at first. I wasn't to keen on doing this to the boys !!

One of the g uys at the pub, who looks like The DJ Producer..

I amused them with my French sayings for a while, which were mostly rude.

Went back to the party around 9. It kicked off at 10pm (finishing at Midday on Sunday). The lightshow was amazing (Light show - AVI File (1523 K)) and could be seen from miles away lighting up the sky.

It took a while to get busy. Around 2000 - 2500 people where there in the end I think.

Eventually met the promoter, a nice young lady called Sophie, who was very busy & stressed allnight but done an excellent job. Well done pet !

Got my VIP pass so I could wander round everywhere and help myself to free beer, food & wine !

Drank a lot and by 1am I was canny drunk, so started drinking water as I was playing 3 - 5.

Sobered up by 2:30 and wheeled my record bag to the hut thing where the decks were. Earlier on they had asked me to check out the set up to see if it was OK and everything was the right height for me !

DJ Stonehenge who played before me. The sparks outside are from those mad grinding things that were going on.

I glanced at the lineup and they had me down as 'Breast Mechanic' haha....

I stood around waiting for Stoney to finish his set of French hardcore and this mad big dog jumped on my back and tried to hump me ! It was tied up behind the decks. Crazy. It also kept putting its head between my legs from behind when I was playing.

Another dog came up and started barking like mad. I had to ask the sound man to get rid of them because I thought if they stay here for the 2 hours I'm playing my music will send them bezerk. Scary, don't like animals.

Anyway, played for 2 hours, started off slow at around 200 BPM then towards the end around 280 BPM and the odd 300 - 400 BPM track stuck in between.

It was a bit difficult to mix as the monitors were directly behind my back so certain tunes were difficult to mix. The left needle kept jumping when cueing up which was really annoying but luckily the sound guy had a spare, so that was sorted,

The sound was very very loud & clear. In front of me was a big fence and I couldn't really see the people, but to the left there was a gap where this massive wall of speakers were, like the size of a double decker bus.

5pm came round quickly and I went of in search of my newly found friends and free beer. I downed 2 pints quickly. Couldn't find my friends and went back for more beer and more and more. Found my friends and we bopped around and drank for the rest of the night.

I took Alex to the beer tent and we both put tour mouths under the tap and got wrong of some lady, hehe.

Had lots of smelly poo's, unfortunately this one was not one of mine...

Walked around for a while talking to lots of people, oggling nice chicks and trying to chat them up, asking them to show me what a French kiss was, and some actually did, hehe. BEAST on tour.

At 7am the sun was shining again and Meuj was playing a nice newstyle gabber set that got the slightly wreakening crowd up & jumping again...

Check out the gabber dance - AVI File (3085 K)

It was about this time that Joris from the gabber list recognised me and I hung around with these guys for a while. I went to the VIP tent and came back with some cups of beer and 4 kit kats on a silver tray for them. Later the try was used to spin on my head etc in a tired drunken attempt to breakdance on a dusty gravel floor!

Joris does not like orange juice, he wants beer !!!

Joris, Wiuter & Reindert ......

Amused them by trying to chat up more French girls

Had a burger about 8 and went to sleep on the grass.

Had a couple of ours sleep back at Meuj's house before they kindly gave me a lift to the station to get the train to Paris. I really Didn't want to leave as I wanted to stay and party and everyone was so nice, bahhh. Maybe next time

Still drunk, had a pint in Paris airport, got some mad souvenirs, a pink cuddly Eifell Tower, a big pencil and a flute, oh and a bottle of cranberry vodka.

Got back to Edinburgh around 5pm, went to Boony's, tried drinking that vodka which was so strong & horrible, pored lemonade in it and bought everyone there suppers & fell asleep.

Lots of other mad stories but not suitable for internet as my Mother may be reading, hehe

My best friends for the day, Meuj, Alex & Sena)

More photo's here on Joris's web site.

I would just like to say a big thankyou to Sophie the promotor for an excellent party and did an excellent job

And to Alex & his friends for looking after me so well. I wish I could of stayed longer !

Oh and Alex and co - remember to find me a nice French girl so I can come and live there !!