Upon the weekend of Pride in Amsterdam, G-Star RAW took over the Westergasfabriek Culture Park boasting a 7000 capacity in conjunction with MTV booking the numerous acts spanning hip hop, soul, pop and jazz across 5 stages. The Dutch label hosted a music festival of rather extensive proportions, seeing acts like Dizzee Rascal and Ryan Leslie headline the main stage set up in a former gas cylinder with a giant shark suspended above the audience. Artists from Roni Size to Lamb, Herbalize It, and Wax Fiend to jazz lady Alice Russell turned up to play in addition to the abundance of Dutch rap bands in the converted industrial warehouse and gasworks site one-upping Shoreditch chic.
Pilooski played a late set back-to-back against Tom Trago’s breed of house and disco whilst French Fulgeance’s amazingly energetic progressive/electronica live set drew in a small crowd of nutters. Toddla T with MC Serocee’s interaction with the crowd in warehouse number two was surprisingly well-maintained considering the culture barriers of a Machines Don’t Care Sheffielder in the ‘Dam. The festival was mostly focused on ‘urban’ genres but to provide a much-welcomed different scene, Lowriders played a mix including techno-electro a la Proxy/Boys Noize and booty in a small den amongst the pannenkoeken and beer.
G-Star’s own branded canal boat, the RAW Ferry transported the team to their private area furnished with their Home line including a huge custom-built transportable bar, featuring ‘banging’ electro DJ’s alongside the espresso and champagne bars, canapés and BBQ, complete with a showroom of next year’s G-Star collections, where the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble played their second lively set of the night.
The new range includes a capsule line by Australian industrial designer Marc Newson using clean lines and simple graphic prints, to their high end, ‘Correct Line’ with more grown up Mens and Womenswear. Denim being the heart of G-Star means they mix workwear ideals with a contemporary ethics.
Late on the last night, crowds gathered to watch local Chuckie playing Vs Lil Jon before Afrojack’s varied set of lairy Dutch house, playing his remix of Moombah by the very same Chuckie with Silvio Ecomo, and his Diplo collaboration Pon De Floor, in line with the various Major Lazer ethics being blasted everywhere on site.
Much to the alcoholics delight, an on-site Heineken walk-in fridge invited festival-goers to shoot commercials, nearby a lush organic cocktail bar stocking elderflower ‘limonades’ playing drum ‘n’ bass to dubstep before blasting out Radioclit, whilst navy uniformed girls sped up and down the lanes in Heineken golf buggies carting off the drunk, ironically. Well worth waking up in England covered in stamps, bruises and pancake goo of some sort, and realizing you know far too many Dizzee Rascal songs.
by Flora of Nobody Cares about Kitsune