Clubbing Magazine


The weekend of the 6th to 8th of September 2002, was set to be one of the biggest electronic weekends of the year. The German trance master Paul van Dyk was set to play for the first time since 94 in Copenhagen and the French electronic wizard Jean Michel Jarre was placing Denmark on the map of his famous massive outdoor concerts under the name of AREO.
Friday the 6th no Paul Van Dyk, he was sick with an ear infection and cancelled. With some sadness I still went to Vega to see what was going on. After a few hours I went home so I could get a good rest, before travelling to Gammel Vraa, just north of Aalborg the next day. Saturday around 17.00 a kilometre long queue of cars were blocking the motorway exit and we were in for a long wait in the rain. Mmmhhh – did I remember my rain boots? ooohh No. At long last we parked the car and we went to the windmill park. Why were people going the other way and why were they saying that we didn’t know what we were going into? Well we were soon to discover. The field was not covered with happy people, but with plastic wrapped people moving slowly over a field of mud. It wasn’t just a thin layer of mud; no you went all the way down to your ankles. Many people had already tripped and hurt themselves. On our way finding a place to see the concert, I decided to lower my own ambitions of taking many photos of this event. The PR management were so kind as given me a photo pass so I could get to the front of the stage, but I quickly saw that I would never find my way back and forth unharmed in this mud bank when is was dark. We settled down near the sound booth. No music, no entertainment and only 1½ hour to the concert started, just people talking about the weather and what to expect. 45 minutes before, the ambient work of Jarre was turned on – it was the music of “Waiting For Cousteau”, and we were told that the concert would go on as planned in spite of the whether. Fashionably late at 21.15 Jarre starts the countdown and we were all blasted into another dimension of sound, lights and fireworks. We were treated with great versions of all the big tracks from Oxygene, Equinoxe, Magnetic Fields, Rende-vous, Chronologie and some new tracks. The sound, light and fireworks were all coordinated to perfection, but where was the laser, a Jarre trademark.
	We were all having a blast until the wind picked up and the rain came in heavy on us all. We dicided to leave and sadly we miss out on Safri Duo’s performance. Luckily the car was parked near to the road, but just to get it up on the road was a problem, we had to push the car all the way, and I was totally covered in mud. We were moving slowly. It took about 1½ hour to drive the 2-kilometer to the motorway. The MP’s that were conducting the traffic, had no means of communication and for a long time we just sat still on the road, seeing a lot of people walking on the same road to their cars and busses in the mud. What a poor job on the infrastructure, this madness wasn’t just coursed by the rain, it would have been the same if it hasn’t rained – just think about it - two roads in and out for 40.000 people. I later discovered, that a fence was broken, people got hurt trying to get out to their cars and many used over 5 hours to get out to the motorway. Over 1000 cars were left on the fields of mud and were first picked up the day after.
On the motorway back to Copenhagen we were told that a deep trance party in Copenhagen had been closed, due to the place didn’t have the proper license. What a weekend - it was set to be great. But I’m happy that I went all the way to Gammel Vraa to be a part of a unique thing that will stay with me for a long time.
Text, live and mud photos by: Christian Almind