Art Village 2012 – meeting my interviewees in person was nice. Watching them in action, watching artwork grow by the minute, following the brush strokes, taping, nailing, spraying, glueing… observing the steps taken to create an installation or a 3D-painting… WOW! Check out the final works on spot today!

Poetry Saloon – Party Arty host Yaneq can be proud of his Poetry Saloon! Every time I passed the tent of the Poetry Saloon, it was packed with people, chairs filled and people standing around the tent entry. This was definitely a highlight at Berlin Festival, and I cannot wait to attend the next Party Arty event!

* Excerpt: The Beatpoeten combined spoken word an live electronic music, a perfect medium between the poetry slam and the music festival. Awesome idea to integrate it to the festival!

My favourite picks:

Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble featuring special guest: Jamie Lidell(!) opened the first day of  Berlin Festival 2012 – too bad few people knew about this… If you missed them: tonight at Horst Kreuzberg, they will host their first live event!

Little Dragon: Oh, how beautiful, beautiful the voice of Yukimi Nagano was! Dream came true, saw them live, and they were amazing!

Tocotronic: Still a good gig but nothing new anymore. They are a small legend so it was worth listening to them for a while, but I would have preferred them to come up with something new… IMHO.

Grimes aka Claire Boucher: f*cking amazing talent. I did not know why people were going crazy, but she definitely will bring it even further than she is now – this is an artist to watch!

We Have Band: Love, love, love – this is how a festival should be like! Loads of good artists like We Have Band!! They rocked!!

Ghostpoet: This guy is dope. Was such a pity he had to perform on a smaller stage – he would have definitely fit on one of the bigger ones…

Sigur Ròs: I would have rather seen this act on a smaller stage, I had the feeling the style of music was to be heard in a more intimate location. Would love to see this act in a smaller club.

Nicolas Jaar: I love his releases but this performance of him and his two colleagues was quite disappointing and not my taste at all. Maybe it was the ambiance of the festival; his rather psychedelic trancy set was not touching. If you want to see him, see him perform at a solo concert!

* Major Lazer: FAVOURITE PICK of the day. Compared to the musically more “traditionally set” concerts and performances of the day, the Major Lazor show was pure ecstasy. I was exhausted from the musical input of the day and quite exhausted – but this performance was just dope.

I did not walk up to the front at this festival because my ears were still recovering from Europe’s biggest drum & bass festival OUTLOOK2012, so my snapshots are from far away. A special photostory will be uploaded soon by my photographer Erik Johansson!

Behind the scenes:

* André Hercher (tip Magazine Berlin) who is always at the major events of Berlin had a photo wall with a photo collage in the VIP / Press area: “Wer nicht drauf ist, war nicht dabei” – many many snapshots of all important club owners and event managers, party people and scenes of Berlin. Well, I also got some nice snapshots in my mailbox, so I might say “I was there!” ;)

Upcoming:

André Hercher

Cookie and guests watching the collage

Collage

Collage

Aftershow Party:

As Justin Martin (dirtybird) was in town after more than a year of absence, we hurried to Gretchen to meet up with him. He was looking great, having just released his first full-length album. Finally hearing a different type of set than you usually hear in clubs in Berlin (thumbs up Gretchen for the booking) he crowd went crazy. Everyone was booty shaking and screaming out of joy – because his set was pure joy!

Bumping into an acquaintance, John aka JSTAR, I remembered him being the tour manager of diplo (mad decent). Diplo was playing after Justin Martin and before my friend Delfonic (Oye), and I had never seen him play before, so I just stayed a bit longer than planned.

I must admit I was positively surprised! Will check out his radio shows on BBC more often ;)

After J.Phlip and Yooj joining us, we had fun times with the whole Major Lazer crew and today, I woke up like I had a major hangover despite the fact I did not drink at all.

Good news: heading to Berlin Festival now, meeting up with my friends and colleagues.

Last, I allow myself some self-promotion: I will open the Wasted German Youth floor 0-1 at Arena Club, Club X-Berg, the official Berlin Festival Club – Ryan Nyquist will play the afterhours 6 till open end ;) Junior Boys, TEED, Modeselektor, Simian Mobile Disco, Full Nelson, Fritz Zander and many more will be playing there, too, so come by!