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Saturday morning at Dimensions Festival started slowly.
Despite arriving quite late on Friday I’d still managed to drink a lot of alcohol without eating more than a fried chicken wrap, so my head was already very foggy. Saturday was a big day so remedial action was necessary: a trip to the local cornershop to get some ham, cheese, bread, tinned sardines (I have no explanation for this, sorry) and some orange juice.
I sat on the mini-terrace in front of the apartment eating this improvised breakfast while the Tisno bell tower chimed away merrily to itself and the two men in the neighbouring apartment dissected their performances from the night before, that is both on stage and in bed. Every so often during this conversation, one of them would suddenly drop and do a few press ups to let off steam. Apparently this is what straight men do in each other’s company. Then I took a dip in the complex’s shared pool and sat in the sun to dry off while reading a book about digestion. (As any DJ will tell you, digestion is a key concern when playing records for a living, second only perhaps to sleep.)
I know none of this is really about Dimensions Festival itself, but on this particular morning I was doing anything I could to distract myself from the fact I had to DJ twice in the next 12 hours, once on a boat and once on the biggest stage I’d ever had the privilege of playing on. The nervous energy (and nervous bowels, cf. the book about digestion) were coming to a head after weeks of thinking and anticipating and preparing for this one day, and I needed to calm myself down as much as possible. That meant forgoing the early afternoon Beach stage action, so I only arrived on site with time for a quick late lunch before the boat party at four.