Note from the editor: ADE is a yearly conference for the dance music industry. There are many hundreds of events across the city, day and night, for five days, ranging from workshops to panel discussions to small parties to huge concerts.
Monday: We knew that jet lag was going to be bad for this trip and that manifested immediately. Our 10-ish-hour flight from SFO left in the afternoon, so just as we were starting to feel sleepy, we landed in Amsterdam and it was time to start our day. Fred, our wonderfully quirky Airbnb host, thankfully let us check in early, which helped us make the most of the day. We spent that first day wandering the neighborhoods since it was some of the best weather on the trip. We accidentally stumbled upon the Almost Summer store, whose “Do Nothing Club” branding I had noticed recently in a Chris Luno video. In the late afternoon, we wandered to Mikkeller for beers and pub food for dinner. They had a surprising amount of veggie options, which I realized was typical for Amsterdam (signs everywhere advertise vegetarian food). After dinner we walked by Melkveg – a music venue housed in a former milk factory – on the way home and passed out early.
Tuesday: Up bright and early, we ate a little breakfast and then fast-walked to the Van Gogh Museum since we were late for our time slot, though no one seemed to mind. We opted for the audio tour and did the Pokémon scavenger hunt as well (the museum currently has a Pokémon tie-in). I think some of Van Gogh’s lesser known works are much better than his popular ones. (Really, we all think this sunflowers painting is actually good?) Afterwards we walked to Oeuf for lunch and had a pretty excellent brunch on their patio. Their menu informed me that (a) they had shakshuka (which I ordered) and that (b) a “porn star martini” is apparently a thing. I put in a few hours of work back at our Airbnb and then later in the afternoon we took the tram to Central Station for our wine-and-cheese canal boat tour.
Wednesday: I worked (or slept) most of the day, then in the evening we went to Melkveg with Ville and Kristiina to see Tinlicker play with Metropole Orkest, a Dutch orchestra specializing in jazz and pop and world music. The show was super cool and they recorded a very professional production of the event (available here and here). It was a great kickoff to the week.
Thursday: I worked for a bit in the morning and then we “adopted” Ville for the afternoon since Kristiina had to work as well. We tried to go to Chun Café for lunch, but the line literally went across the closest bridge, and we ended up having a much better time across the street at Pluk instead. We left Ville in the late afternoon to go to the Claptone live interview and Q&A session, which was hilarious. He was in character the whole time – voice modulator and all – and would say things like “Well since I’m several hundred years old…” in the middle of serious answers. We got some nice swag too (masks, comic books, and playing cards). That night was the Luminosity party, which wasn’t part of ADE, but Ville and Kristiina had tickets to see Nils Hoffman, so we bought tickets too. In retrospect, we could have skipped this – Nils was playing at our event on Saturday – and gone to one of the other events or venues.
Friday: Jet lag hit incredibly hard – plus I think I was fighting a mild cold – so I stayed in bed until 4:00. Going out in the rain to go to a steamy, crowded boat party did not sound appealing, so we skipped that and rested instead. In the early evening, we met Ville and Kristiina, who were coming in “scorching hot” (their words) from the boozy boat party. We met them at the Albert Heijn in Central Station, which was a bumping party with a DJ. We were on a tight schedule, so we all grabbed to-go food and drinks before getting an Uber to the Armada offices for a pop-up party that we (partially) had tickets to. Somehow we weaseled all of us inside and were rewarded with a hell of an evening: access to the Armada radio studio, an open bar at the small nightclub down the hall, being present for Joris Voorn and Eelke Kleijn receiving a gold record, and then a great party all evening with music from Joris, Eelke, and Yotto.
Saturday: We spent most of the day wandering the city, had a Dutch dinner (with mixed reviews) with Ville and Kristiina, and then set off for the big Anjunadeep party. It was a great lineup with a lot of the usuals (James and Jody, Yotto, Eli & Fur, Marsh, etc) but we left “early” at 4:00 since we wanted to enjoy our final full day.
Sunday: Well I guess it was a great week, because I woke up with no voice. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the nice weather, wandered the neighborhoods, did some shopping, got a massage, and had a fancy seafood dinner at Pesca, which I would highly recommend to anyone.
Our week in Amsterdam was somehow action-packed and too sparse at the same time. We barely made use of our conference passes because we were either too jet lagged to go out or synchronizing our schedules with our friends. We did really enjoy all the events we made it to though. I think if we went to ADE again we would approach it a bit differently and make more of an attempt to go to the daytime events and some of the iconic venues. Getting into Europe early, beating back jet lag, and not working remotely would help a lot with this.
All that said, I was really impressed with Amsterdam. In some ways, it feels a bit like the good parts of San Francisco: beautiful, walkable, green, bike-friendly (but to another level obviously), vegetarian-friendly, metropolitan, yet also kind of casual. Everyone speaks perfect English and the tram and Uber both work very well, so getting around is incredibly easy. I would absolutely go back, for ADE or anything else, though ADE is a pretty good motivator. I realize most of the non-party portions of this blog post were just us wandering around, but honestly, it’s a really great way to experience the city.
See you next year, Amsterdam?
