[this changes tenses a lot IM SORRY BUT THIS IS A POST-MODERN WORLD AND I WAS DANCING FOR 12 HOURS...HOW'S THAT FOR (IN)TENSE]
Because We Are Your Friends
For devotees of techno music, no pilgrimage is more sacred than their journey to the I Love Techno Festival in Ghent, Belgium. The event is held in the expansive Flanders Expo a few minutes outside of the town, but not far enough away to console the residents. At the festival, holy DJs sustain the beat for over 12 hours, while their fans stomp and flail to the music. You can feel the rumbling pulses of sound from the nearby train station. On the day of I Love Techno, Ghent is deserted.
The festival pilgrims are mostly University-age youth, equip with fluorescent clothing, lighters and glow sticks. They flock into Ghent in waves, and plant themselves in the local bars and restaurants to wait to take the train to the expo for the festival.
A young man sits outside a restaurant wearing a Leprechaun costume. He looks around, watching group of techno lovers with blue hair waiting in a nearby park. “Look at them all,” he says, fixing the green top hat on his head, “they’re all crazy.”
Girls in the bathroom of the restaurant apply heavy make up, their ritual masks for the night to come. Eight blackened eyes stare back at me from the bathroom mirror. After my own long pilgrimage, I want to wash my hands.
We took a 14 hour bus ride from Prague to Brussels, Belgium on Friday night, and spent Saturday in Ghent (a municipality in Flanders, Belgium) consuming carbohydrates to last the evening. Then, on light, happy feet we made our way to the Flanders Expo Center, which held the 35,000 festival guests.
On the train to the expo, a young girl clutches her pint of beer, still in the mug she stole from the restaurant. She takes a gulp, and without hesitation screams, “TECHNO? TECHYES!!”
We waited in line in the rain from 5:30-6:30 pm, knowing that we wouldn’t see the outside again until at least 5 am the next morning. Inside the expo center, neon light sculptures flash in the center of the lounge area. By the next morning, the carpets and couches in the lounge, which is labeled with a neon sign that says “Chill Out,” will be covered in watery grime from the techno fans’ shoes, and white sediment from their dry sweat.
It is crowded. There are four separate rooms where DJs spin, and there is a steady flow of people in and out of each room from the time the first note vibrates through the hall.
It is impossible to escape the crowd. The dance rooms are barred off by a maze-like series of gates; they are there to prevent guests from flooding the room. Each room can only hold 5,000 people, so pressure mounts as the night progresses; the best DJs take the stage around 3 am.
After six hours of dancing, the lines for water are overwhelming. The chill out lounge is full of exhausted, spread-eagled bodies. It looks like a refugee camp. Inside the dance rooms, lights flash and spin over the crowd. Whenever the bright lights go on, you can see the audience, a sea of bodies balancing between pleasure and torture. At every moment, someone is touching you, exchanging sweat, exchanging energy.
Finally, at 3:30 am in the dance room labeled “Orange,” the most famous DJ duo of the night takes the stage.
They call themselves Justice, and during their set, they raise their arms up in the shape of a cross, while the techno pilgrims scream their lyrics like a prayer for relief. Relief from the dance. Relief from the loud music. Relief from the drugs.
The sacred two DJ behind a glowing cross embedded in a celestial mess of blinking lights. Periodically you can see people raising their arms in the shape of a cross. We shout their lyrics:
“Because we are your friends, you’ll never be alone again.”
It is impossible to feel alone in the crowd of pilgrims, but each person has their own dance, their own prayer, their own reason for seeking the release of 12 hours of straight dancing and partying.
Later that morning, the techno fans drag their legs through the town of Ghent, some looking for a hotel, some looking for a place to sit and wait for their train back to Brussels.
All the hotels are closed. The residents of Ghent know that I Love Techno brings young partiers and drug users from across Europe. They are covered in sweat and leave trails of water bottles and vomit.
Still, ask any of them, and they will say that I Love Techno is not an out of control party, but a religious experience. It is for the music. It is for the love of the sound. It is to be with your friends—the fellow pilgrims.
