Trip diary - End of a rave, and the long road.

Trip diary day 4 – Bus going back to Amman [July 28, 2007]

The raves are over, now on the way back on yet another bus heading back to the more familiar and busy surroundings of Amman. Been two crazy days really. I’m kind of blank now, just sitting there not knowing what to type! Guess I should just talk about what made me go on this whole trip, the Distant Heat electronic music festival!

We finally left Aqaba’s yacht club at around 9 pm, the bus ride was fun, met some cool people, amongst them is a couple of sponsors working with radio stations (Play FM IIRC), a couple of Jordanian/Palestinian dudes and many Europeans (Irish and Dutch), of course, the first few interactions were to teach them the typical swear words in Arabic, amongst a few other more reasonable expressions such as hello, sorry, good night, it’s always fun to see how foreigners pronounce Arabic words, khmaar instead of 7maar (Hmaar as in donkey), but for some reason if the word already had the ‘kh’ part they wouldn’t be able to pronounce that part! Don’t worry, we ‘exposed’ them to a more abusive array of abusive terminology ;).

Arrived there at around 10 pm after a stop at a checkpoint and a long sandy road, I simply have no clue whatsoever how people actually managed to get there, let alone the fact that most cars were small (As in small, I mean salons, hatchbacks, and so on, not big SUVs and 4x4s), there was no signage and directions (Or at least I couldn’t notice them), no street lights and no proper roads, but hey, many people probably know the exact location, apparently that is where people usually go to camp when they go to wadi rum (Hence, the adjacent camp with many tents. Also, the small fact that this is not the first time the festival was held, it’s been held for several years in a row boasting names such as Markus Schulz, Armin Van Buuren and Ferry Corsten.

Got off the bus, got my wrist band and proceeded to the main area in front of the dj booth, BeeBee, a Jordanian talent was doing the warm-up and boy, the first time I hear a set of his and it was magnificent, he certainly knows how to get the crowd pumped up. Played a mixture of some electro, prog house and prog trance if memory serves me right, wicked stuff. Roamed around the massive ‘venue’, VIP area was neat and well-planned, seemed a tad too crowded though after midnight, not that it matters much to me as I hardly hanged out there, Wonder why I paid extra, I didn’t sit on the comfy couches, nor did I drink any alcohol, thus, coupons were gone for water bottles and red bulls. The water was supposedly being given out for free, but it wasn’t, not that it matters much now though, the whole extra coupons thing is a control measure and to entice big drinkers.

Dave Seaman took over the decks at around 12 or 1, can’t recall correctly, he was until recently a dj that I only recognize by name, but his set was magnificent, perfect for electro and prog house lovers. By the time he started mixing, the place was already busy with many ‘ravers’… I wish I could remember some of the tracks he played, all I recall is Muhannad aka. Moe (Met him on the bus, cool fella) IDing two or three tracks produced or mixed by Trentmoller, other than that, I remotely recall a track being played towards the end of his set, one that Gabriel & Dresden have something to do with, probably was either “Tracking Treasure Down” or “Till There Was You”… Before Dave finished his set, while being in front of the dj booth I saw Toni and Jono Grant of A&B talking to someone in the backstage area, I simply couldn’t stop myself from going there to try and talk to them, which I succeeded at after persuading one of the security personnel to let me in, I talked to them briefly and took pictures with them, I went again with a couple of new friends (God bless Facebook), but couldn’t get in without the event promoter, organizer, manager, EVERYTHING (God bless her!), Julian, sneaked us in, we took a picture as a group with the two Anjunaboys who came with MY CAM (Will get back to this point later), Paavo stayed back in London, it seems a habit for dj bands to divide activities and tasks between them, usually someone is more into production and the other is more into mixing and DJing =). Also met FILA of Ali & Fila! Who by the way didn’t spin at Tala Bay in the morning as I thought and anyway, I thought it was ALI rather than Fila! Heh, people will know this by the time this is posted, but the Lebanese beach-goers will be in for a big surprise on Sunday, as part of MixFM’s great beach parties called One Big Sunday, he’s the one who is the surprise, I went on Trancehits today and read comments showing how curious people were, I PMed a couple of them spoiling the surprise, I just couldn’t hide it hehe! Some went as far as thinking it might be Ferry Corsten or something, but my first impression so far is that this Fila fellow is the friendliest and most humble dj I have met personally thus far, he didn’t have ANY attitude whatsoever, and he seemed even happier than us! Respect to the Egyptian dude! Also met BeeBee, djing and party animal hehe! Tried to talk to Dave Seaman, but I guess I ran out of my luck with security guys at that point.

Above & Beyond, world number 9 djs according to the controversial DJ Mag yearly poll, who have recently rocked the Olympic stadium in Los Angeles graced the decks of Wadi Rum soon after that. Two tracks into the set, for some f***ed up reason, naïve and stupid me entrusted a total stranger to carry my camera while I was recording a video, only for what I imagined was unthinkable to happen. As soon as I turned my head, that lowlife and tactless effing cunt disappeared with OUR memories, excuse my French, but that is the least I could describe that piece of s***… I am still kicking myself in the backside for assuming he was with the new friends I met there, I don’t want the camera itself, I was whining and nagging about it in my last diary update!!! I just want the bloody memory card with all the videos and photos that I took. He can shove the camera up his backside as far as I am concerned, chances are he will not even know how to use it in the first place! Thank God I still have my baby, my Canon AND I will get another Canon when I am back in DXB, a smaller one of course than the 400D. This just shows you how precious pictures (and recently videos) are to me, they have no monetary value, but the fact that they evoke memories and good times is more than enough. And by the way, the less I say about the crappy attitude I got from people I asked for help the better, you can keep your silly advices and hoes to yourselves!

Back to the music, it took me a while to recover from the fact that everything from that night is gone, par a few pictures other people took, but I eventually got back to a state of trance, I kept track of the, err, track list of A&B’s set, I couldn’t ID everything, but I recognized many of them, which were played on their radio show, Trance Around The World, I’ll nag again and say that IF I still had my cam, I’d have been able to ID them later on when I watch the videos. (Or at least someone would’ve helped out on Youtube, Trancehits, or wherever. Here is my improper track list with a few comments:

“Welsh Morphology”. kind of an intimidating ‘vocals’(But no lyrics) in this track IMHO, but still quality beat nevertheless.
A Life Less Ordinary – Alex Morph vs. Rank 1. YES, I finally IDed it after hearing it live for the umpteenth time!! But of course, I have no clue whatsoever which remix
Needs To Feel – Super 8 & DJ Tab [Wippenberg remix]. This is one of my favorite tracks at the moment, limited, but deep vocals, I ‘overheard’ it while arguing with security at the venue entrance :P
Air For Life – Above & Beyond vs. Andy Moor. They simply had to play it, the first track I ever heard by them, still recall hearing it on the radio in Lebanon in the summer of 2005, massive, massive tune.
I Can’t Sleep – Above & Beyond. They played it at 4:30 am!!! I couldn’t quite understand why Jono & Toni were pointing at their watches when the track started playing, took me a few seconds to figure out, but I went berserk nevertheless once it started, call their productions cheesy if you want to, but this isn’t, this is a classic.
Waiting Here For You – Thrillseekers feat. Aruna. YES, they played it! Don’t think it was the original (Breakfast remix perhaps?).
Fly Away – Vincent De Moor (me thinks)
No One On Earth – Above & Beyond [Gabriel & Dresden remix]. Reminded me of a former trancehitter (S), always nice to hear this track.
Untitled Audio (Not sure)
Dangerous Power – Gabriel & Dresden (I think!). Another track that I didn’t expect to hear.
“Touch Me” – Mike Koglin & Jono Grant mash-up/remix. Crowd went absolutely nuts when he played it, again. Great timing as the sun was rising!
Sun Is Shining – Bob Marley [MLV remix]. Wohooooooo! Orgasmic, simply orgasmic, with the sun literally shining on the rocks in the magnificent natural setting!
Tri-state – Above & Beyond. [Some remix, I think Robert Nickson]. No comments!
Nothing – James Holden. Top notch.
Sand In My Shoes – Dido [Above & Beyond remix].
Good For Me – Above & Beyond.
Alone Tonight – Above & Beyond. This was it; I’d have been content if they stopped playing after this!
Home – Above & Beyond [Club mix]. I expected a “Satellite” finale rather than Home (I think this was the last track of their set), but it was good to hear it nevertheless… “Looking for a place called home” :(

As mentioned before, there were several other tracks that fall in the HIB category (An acronym I made up for Heard It Before type of tracks). They finished their set at around 6:30-7-ish…

BeeBee, did the after-hours set, only recognized Armin’s Rush Hour, the third track of the set. I left the area soon after and met up again with some of the guys who were on the bus, what was after that was an organizational scramble, as we could NOT find the bus that brought us in the first place, and kept on asking the bus drivers till after more than 30 minutes of canvassing, we finally found one. Don’t recall the time we got back to Aqaba at, but it was a long journey nevertheless. Was too knackered to go to the after party at Tala Bay, where some upcoming local Jordanian DJs were spinning till sunset… Went online for a while before sleeping till the evening, headed to the Yacht Club, where the ‘smaller’ rave was taking place. Arrived at 11, only to be told at the doors that the ticket was NOT sufficient to guarantee entry, what else was needed? COUPLES, they must be freakin’ kidding me, luckily, Stamina, one half of the BO18 club residents in Beirut Gunther & Stamina was entering at the same time, I talked to him for a bit and he managed to convince the bouncer to let me in, chatted with him, Gunther and another Jordanian DJ called Ashtek when we got in the club briefly about what set they’re going to play (Hope I got the spelling right).

At the time of writing, we are about 90 kilometers away from Amman. In total, it’s more than 300 KMs. I wonder how much time would it take me IF I was driving my own car, the last time I drove to Abu Dhabi in UAE, it took me about 50 – 60 or so minutes, with ‘normal’ driving it takes one hour and a half.

I stopped writing at around 7:30pm as the bus stopped for the passengers to refresh for a bit by buying some overpriced stuff. Chatted all the way back with some more new friends, yey! Will continue later, got to consider what I am supposed to do now…