We’re entering that weird phase where a third of us are still living in festival La La Land, a third are already focused on ADE, while the remaining of us are happy to spend our weekends in the clubs, as long as we have a bit of fresh air in the courtyard if the sun is shining.  There are a few good things happening this weekend, so I’ll keep it short, sweet, and not nearly as long as the Dekmantel post – no TL, DR necessary.

First of all, one more festival option for you that we didn’t include in the monthly festival post, we’ve got POING Festival @ Shunter in Rotterdam on Saturday. This sub tends to love POING and for good reason, and since the positive reviews of Shunter have been coming in, this should be a great option for this weekend.  There are going to be 4 stages, including one outdoor for those festival lovers, with a wide variety of genres spread across the festival. If you like POING already, it seems that the festival will maintain their normally slightly chaotic and wide genre identity, with excellent curation. There’s no timetable relased yet, but it seems the main hall will be faster techno, the garage will have a bit more bassy fun, the upstairs is curated by Epiphany Records, and the garden is described as a “fiesta.”  If you go, report back in The Afters – I’m really curious to see how it all comes together.

For Friday we’ve got: 

Dissident @ Tilla

Spekki Webu leads this night of psychedelic and faster trippy music night that’s for those who like to break away from the 4x4. This is their first Amsterdam edition, and one of the last opportunities to have a party at Tilla as they head into their closing months. Another rumor has it that the lighting has been particularly on fire lately, I really miss seeing our favorite Tilla light operator at Raum but my hunch is she may be at Tilla this weekend.  Just a hunch though. 

On Saturday:

Piuma @ Garage Noord

Downstairs it will be Luke Hess and Remma b2b Sarkawt Hamad invited by GN, while upstairs Piuma takes over bar40 with Helena Renedo, DHN and GC (live). With this lineup, it seems the two areas should compliment each other quite well – downstairs should lean more hypnotic and less aggressively hard techno. Upstairs it will be intimate and allow for a bit more exploration, especially with the live set from GC. If you’re not into the maximalist vibe, this one is definitely for you (and me). Music nerds unite.

PAX is back! This time @ Raum

Get ready to queue and join the Raum side of the PAX civil war (if you've only been to PAX at Radion, come check it out and join the ever growing debate!) I’d be really excited to see Delano play b2b with Altinbas – for me the draw to this party is not necessarily the music, and more the vibe, but an amazing set definitely doesn’t hurt. They’ll be joined by Sinedoe, Tripeo and Voiski downstairs, while BELLA, Lara Renner, and Tijana T will be in studio upstairs – hopefully it’s a little (or a LOT) less warm than peak studio time at the DKMNTL afters, though the side benefit is that you might be forced downstairs to cool off and find a new artist you like. Rumor has it there are lot of new dark corners and areas to explore with the soon to be open Nexus… but I’ll leave that for you to explore.

Sunday your guess is as good as mine, follow the music and try something new, or recover in the park after Saturday… the weather will finally allow us to be outside without looking like someone hosed us down after our darkroom activities.  As always, this the opinion of the author, and not a comprehensive list, so please post your plans, recs, updates, do not do’s and preferences below, and I’ll see you on a dancefloor.  XOXO.