The fact that some of the most famous export products are Red Bull, Glock guns and classical music already says a lot about us Austrians. We’re a bit odd, in a good way… mostly… One thing that served as a prime example was Electric Love Festival, which was a circus for exactly that kind of awesome craziness.

I was traveling all the way from Vienna and to my impatient self, the ride took a bit longer than usual. Two friends of mine, the fashion blogger Annika (click here to her check blog ‘herpistolgo’) and the DJ Danny La Vega were nice enough to take me with them, as Danny was playing in the night. The ride itself was already quite impressive as we rode deeper into the alpine areas of Austria, the mountains would just get higher and higher and I even got a glimpse of the “Moon Lake”, which was close to the festival.

Arriving at Camping South around 14:30, I was still hoping I’d see the last bit of Audiofreq (spoiler: I wouldn’t) and pitched up my tent (Of course in accordance to our cool camping guide, click here) pretty close to the festival area entrance, a decision that I’d love and hate myself for later. I was hyped already, especially because the organization of the festival itself was brilliant for those with press accreditation. Just as I began running down, some guys suddenly realized my voice recorder and we started talking; it turned out that they were there for the Q-Dance stage as well, so we ended up walking there together.
Whilst I was walking, something struck my eyes… I suddenly stopped. What. A. View. The path from Camping South to the Q-Dance stage itself was beautiful already. Forest, Mountains, and a STUNNING view upon the main stage. Also on my radar: the first alcohol zombies.

And then, there it was: the Q-Dance stage. A Lion, ready to roar some Hardstyle at me and I was not let down. “But first, let me…” – duh, grab a beer! The token system was pretty fuckin’ cool: instead of several tokens you got an ELF-styled NFC chip card, which you could reload – which also meant that the prices were displayed in euros! The best thing was that you could get your money back at the end of the festival if you didn’t spend it! I took my card, loaded some cash onto it and head off to get some drinks and see Atmozfears.

One thing is certain, I f*cking love Atmozfears. No, really, his music is just perfect for summer times and smashing nice cold beers in the burning hot alpine sun. He treated us to a great selection including his own tracks like ‘Starting Over’ , ‘Release’ (of course) and my personal favourite, the ‘Sparks’ remix, yet also some other wonderful Summer tunes. I headed towards the front and soon started running into my friends, some of which I haven’t seen in almost a year.

I also ran into Geck-O and asked about how his set went. “I played all the music I loved and danced to, I wanted to share this with the crowd!” he said with a smirk. Apparently the response has been great which resulted in me feeling extremely bummed that I missed his and Audiofreq’s sets. Geck-O and I continued talking… “Why are you not drunk yet? Is #drunkjournalism fake? Don’t believe the hype!”  Well, dear Geck-O, I just arrived.
I kept on exploring the area and then, just seconds after I ran into Geck-O, I ran into Audiofreq. This was fate, making me feel bad for missing their sets. Asking Sam about his set, he told me that he was trying to focus upon more “technical” mixing now, meaning: not your standard transitions! Then from a friendly conversation to a surprise, I suddenly and somehow found myself awkwardly standing in the middle of a fucking mosh pit?! I knew mosh pits from my punk days but I was just baffled to see it at a hardstyle event (remember I said how us Austrians are weird sometimes?)

After Atmozfears’ (who closed with ‘Bounce & Break’) set I head up to the VIP deck to hide in the shade and watch Bass Modulators. The sun was burning down with no mercy and neither my inner goth nor my blood alcohol level were quite liking it. The Q-dance VIP deck was small and view was cool however I would have preferred a centered deck. I overheard someone complaining that there was no sun on the deck. This person would love this sun-free deck a lot on the next day.
Back to the music, Bass Modulators were playing an epic set. Dropping classics such as ‘Tonight’ and ‘Natural’ to new stuff like ‘Solar’ and ‘Rocked Up’ with Noisecontrollers, it was probably my favorite set of the day. After cooling down, I went downstairs again to dance but as I took my last step on the stairs I heard a very, familiar intro… The guys were playing ‘KYHU!’ I almost broke into tears of happiness! Okay, maybe I was over-exaggerating slightly but I just NEEDED that track and I needed to dance and quite some dancing I did, until I headed for some more alcohol. In my opinion, the guys really ‘understood’ how to play in Austria. They struck the crowd with a solid mix between, ‘old but gold’, ‘new & popular’ and their own stuff. It was fan-fucking-tastic and the rest of the crowd agreed with me.

As Code Black started playing I met up with some friends at the side of the stage and we started checking out the signs that some people made: “FULL THROTTLE” (sic: ‘GAAAAAAS!‘ – kinda the ‘war cry’ of Austrian Hardstyle fans), “SUMMER OUT, IT’S TITS!” and “Free hugs!” were just some of the crazy signs we saw. Code Black kicked out a pretty neat set, it was very summer’ish and as I heard ‘Accelerate’, I started to wonder what all these children of the sun do or produce when it’s Winter. In the middle of Code Black’s set I had to leave to pick up a friend of mine and escort him to our camping space. My festival neighbours were all amazing and I really liked the spot I picked. I picked up some batteries for my voice recorder and headed back into the action to the melody of ‘Pandora’.

Coone took over at 19:00 and delivered nothing but awesomeness. Picking out some more EDMish remixes of his repertoire, the mood was set and perfect for a festival like Electric Love. As Coone played his 2014 Defqon.1 anthem the atmosphere at the Q-Dance stage was at a new peak and everyone was enjoying themselves. The temperature slowly started to be bearable again, so I was also to be found right in the middle of the crowd. Suddenly we all turned Belgian (thanks, Coone) and began “HEEEEEY-HOOOOOO”-ing like there was no tomorrow. It was crazy! And just when I thought it wasn’t already crazy enough, people suddenly started holding their precious Nike Air Max in the air. The ‘Swoosh Fever’ was real.

At the beginning of Brennan Heart’s set I shortly met up with my friends again and got the chance to check out the main-stage for a while and let me tell you, it was breathtaking… The alpine scenery, the massive stage, the atmosphere and the amazing weather just formed this epic and almost surreal setting that led me having to sit down in order to soak it all in (and to also calm down my sore feet). We went back to Brennan Heart who was playing ‘Lies or Truth’ at the moment we walked in. It was time to ‘FIFO’ shortly afterwards, but then came the nostalgia – ‘Hardcore Vibes’. You could almost feel the good vibes in the air. Classic festival bangers like ‘Wake Up!’ or the Headhunterz ‘Rate Reducer’ Remix and harder stuff like ‘Bassface’ made the set an unforgettable experience.

Gunz For Hire were on for a live-act afterwards and finally the lasers were in full action. Laser game on fleek, Q-Dance. I have no idea how many lasers there were, but there were A LOT. Especially for a mid-sized stage like “the lion kitty” (that’s what we started calling the stage) was. Gunz For Hire themselves just annihilated whatever was left of the crowds energy, or at least I thought so. While “Kings Of The Underground” was probably the highlight of the set, my personal favorite was their new track “Military”. Nightfall made me realize what an Austrian crowd can do – if they want to. One of our countries favorite things to do is “sudern”: a socially accepted form of complaining about everything. “If it ain’t Dutch, It ain’t much,” even here. Guess there won’t be to much “sudern” after these epic two days, right?!

Opening with ‘Wild Wild West,’ Zatox set the mood for a rough, but melodic set. The sit-down moment that happened was probably one of the most epic things I’ve ever experienced. Only a few people didn’t sit down and even the party lovers at the VIP deck were participating. The beach balls and blow-up baby lions that were thrown into the crowd earlier were taken for another spin and the mood was just intense, so was my hunger.

I decided to go grab a bite and head for the ‘Heineken Starclub‘ to see how my friends were doing. So far so good but my plan turned out a bit more difficult than a thought just because of the epic catering. Asian Food, Schnitzels & Pretzels (hey, it’s Austria, right?), Burgers, Spare Ribs, Tex-Mex, Sandwiches, Pizza, Chicken Wings, Toast, Pasta, Donuts, Leberkäsesemmerl (!) and LOTS (!!!!!) of vegetarian stuff made picking some dinner a mouthwatering experience. I got a tasty Pretzel and went my way to the Heineken Starclub. It was a box, basically and it was quite something. The visuals were cool and the club atmosphere was definitely there. Danny La Vega kicked out one danceable track after another (‘Satisfaction’ anyone??) and the vibe was great! So great that even the security guard decided to capture the moment with his phone. The Tiesto & MOTi remix of ‘Lean On’ was my personal highlight and woke up quite some cool memories about Intents Festival.

I headed back to the Q-Dance stage to see B-Front, my personal king of the atmospheric and raw. Standing a bit more in the back now, I could fully see how epic the actual light, lasers and flamethrowers were. ‘Blackness’ was basically my song of the set as I headed more to the front. I was absolutely putting the ‘drunk’ in ‘drunk journalism’ by this time and my voice recordings began to morph from an informative soliloquies to random “WHOOO HOLY SHIT MATE IT’S B-FRONT, YO” in viennese dialect. Quarter past Korsakoff o’clock I decided to call it a day and not fuck up myself or my feet even more than they already were. Being drunk and cold as fuck, the five minutes that it took to get over the hill to my tent at Camping South seemed like an eternity and the hill felt more like Mt. Everest than a small hill. I changed to my sleeping clothes (aka trackies and thick hoodie), ate a can of cheese-filled veggie ravioli and took a while to fall asleep. I kept waking up during the night and slept like shit, but it wouldn’t stop me from going even harder on Day Two!

TO BE CONTINUED!

Picture Credit:
1: Electric Love
2: Q-Dance
3: Electric Love / Heidiefocus
4: Electric Love