Parandroid on Tour: Impressions from the last weeks

The last 2 weeks have been an awesome ride. First, a hefty booking on the hidden Gem Insomnia Festival followed up by Systematic Error in Southern Germany. Here some impressions from my trip.

A special connection

Portugal has a special place in my heart. When I was four years old my parents decided to go away from my birthplace Germany and move to Portugal. From age four to six I lived in various places in Portugal. One of those places is Idanha-a-Nova, the place where the Psychedelic Epicentre Boom Festival is held every two years. The lake where the Boom is was literally my childhood playground. Back when I lived there in 1992, Boom Festival was not even planned yet. When I was 18 years old, a close friend of mine surprised me with an invitation to Boom Festival only three days before we made ourselves on our way to a life-changing experience. I returned to the biggest spectacle that I have yet seen. 26 000 people connected as one, to break through boundaries and paradigms of the 20th century and into a new era of consciousness. Through the boom festival experience, I realized my role in this world as a creator. I would not be where I am today and would not have achieved what I achieved without this experience. After the Boom, there was the Utopia after party of the Boom Festival. And this is where we return to recent events. INSOMNIA Festival is held in that very same location as the Utopia after party. So again, I returned to a familiar place that means a lot to me. There are just some places with immense power, and this location certainly is one of them. Situated in a lush valley full of vegetation and a river that snakes its way through the valley next to the location featuring a lovely natural swimming pool.

Insomnia Festival – a great experience for visitors and artists alike

Insomnia is anything but half-arsed. The organization is top-notch, with some of the best and brightest minds in the Portuguese scene such as Joao aka Dj Anestetic from Nano Records on board, my experience as an Artist was excellent. They put a lot of effort into the art direction of the Festival for which they booked South African Artist ArtEscape and her team. The stage of Insomnia was specially designed for the festival. The extra effort and Money spend clearly paid off though. The stage was beautiful at day and stunning at night with an arabesque touch and beautiful mapping overlays. The Hotel for the Artist is on Site which makes you feel more like a part of the festival as an artist. You are simply not cut off from the rest of the party. The way from the hotel to the Main Stage is only a 2-minute walk. During the Festival, I had the chance to get to know plenty of great people from different facets of the psychedelic music culture and also met several people that I knew from previous gigs. A big thanks go out to Armin from BMSS, Yestermorrow, Will o Wisp and specially Charlz Whiptongue and his wife, which whom I spent the majority of the 2 days I attended Insomnia Festival.

Double Bookings – being an Artist can be a tough Job

Yantra aka Dan

Originally Insomnia Festival planed my playtime at 1:30-3:00 during Saturday night and in this kind of setup, that would have been my preferred slot to play. It is awesome when you feel the organization really put the effort into placing you as an Artist. Unfortunately, this was not possible due to a second booking on Saturday, so they placed my time on Saturday morning, from 6:00-7:30. My flight from Porto was leaving at 11:30 so I literally had to go from the stage to the airport. Playing on Insomnia was an absolutely fantastic experience and I was full of energy when I left the stage to run to the hotel to grab my stuff. After driving to the Airport with what felt like 220 kilometers per hour I safely made my way to Munich in Bavaria by plane to catch my train to the final party of the weekend. Arriving in Munich with only Flip Flops realizing that its fucking cold I decide to quickly buy new shoes in a department store near central station, which in hindsight, was a really really good idea. This event was a lot smaller in size but the crowd was absolutely full power and they helped me get through my three hours set in a breeze. I love to play for small crowds as much as I enjoy playing on huge festivals as long as there is positive feedback on the dancefloor. I was happy to meet my Buddy from Australia Dan aka Yantra with which I spent awesome times during my stay in Australia for Antigravity Festival. We both had a room in a Motel in the suburbs of Nürnberg. Bavaria unfortunately always suffered from severe state repression of psytrance culture, which is also the reason why there is no Psytrance Festival to speak of in the Southern Hemisphere of Germany. there where several attempts of organizers doing Festivals such as for example the legendary Festival “KANIBALEN MASSAKER”. That Festival by Marcus Kanibale was systematically destroyed by local politicians and Police despite perfect organization an legal handling. The Bavarian Administration has a kind of zero tolerance when It comes to psytrance culture. The party went until 5:00 AM on Sunday Morning. At 5 Am clubs are legally required to close in Nürnberg. Yantra and I shared a cab back to the hotel where we chilled for a few hours before taking another cab to the central station. I was seriously done, but also seriously happy. It`s such a satisfying feeling to call it a day after traveling thousands of Kilometres in only a few days jam-packed full of new awesome experiences. Traveling and meeting new faces, having delightful conversations with people from all angles of life, is really an incremental part of my life as an Artist. being a producer means spending thousands and thousands of hours mostly in solitude in the studio. Those more interhuman experiences are the main source of experience. Traveling is also an important reset button for my soul. I am still grateful for each of those moments. Only a few days later Camakavum festival in northern Germany was coming up, so there wasn`t much time to rest after all.