Arrived in Prague around 18:30 and headed straight to the venue in Plzen, about an hour from the airport. On arrival, Ryan told me they’d moved my set to 21:30 (the event started at 20:00), which was a relief, if a bit early. A good compromise for my style though. Checked out the venue real quick. Rallied people for much needed grub. Was told I might only be able to get fried cheese and chips across the road, but when we finally got ourselves together Veronika took us to a wicked Italian place down the street. Got myself an enormous pizza. Ran back to the venue (literally) with 5 minutes to get my shit together and found out my set had been moved to 23:00. Whew! It really couldn’t have been much of a better slot for my first visit. Oh, and get this! Grand total for a six person dinner in a reasonably swank Italian place: £18 (a little over $30).

Everyone else filtered back soon thereafter and we got a chance to get some drinks down us (at around 35p, or $.50 for a damn fine pint of Pilsner Urquel), watched the place fill up, got a feel for the sound, etc. 23:00 crept up quicklyand before I knew it I was well into it. The hour and 45 minute set went by very quickly, except for the last 15 minutes, when I had to sit down for a few seconds to catch my breath. I really threw a lot of myself into it, like you can only do for a big gig. I was really happy with my set and had a hell of a lot more people in there than I would’ve expected when I was going up again Ryan and Stu, who seem to be developing quite a Czech following. My only regret about my set is that I didn’t get to see them – oh, and that one time I knocked the tonearm after finishing a mix. I *always* do that at least once when spinning with those big clunky Stanton 680 headshells. Shame I couldn’t record it – my minidisc chord disappeared the night before. :/ But I can’t end on a negative, since I thought it was one of the better sets I’ve played in public. Here’s some pics of me in action:

The thing that made the biggest impression on me about the main event were how happy everyone seemed to be with their sets, and how open-minded the crowd was. I guess I just don’t often get the same sense of excitement from larger crowds. It still felt very intimate although the venue was fairly big and reasonably full. It’s really hard to pick out a highlight of the evening for me, because I was running back and forth between everything all night. Gutted about missing all of the Blowmen (our sets overlapped). Really really enjoyed what I heard of Rolando. Chris Finke’s drum ‘n bass action was dope (slept through his later set, as pictures will evidence with much hilarity soon). Lee’s set was a particular stand-out for me as well, since we’re on such a similar musical wavelength.

My pics:

As you will see in this poorly translated review, the reaction seems to be fairly positive (or does it)?

original
Na druhé stagi se po Molczikovi gramcù ujal amerièan Tristan Watkins, jehož deep techno mi až chvílemi bralo dech. Od první desky prostì super!! Blížila se jedna hodina a tudíž došlo k hromadnému pøesunu na stage hlavní, kde se již chystala hvìzda svìtového formátu na své první èeské vystoupení.

crap translation
Within species stagnation to about Molczikovi gram ujal Yankee Tristan Watkins, whose deep technologist me when now and then bralo wind. Since prime slabs in plain terms superpower!! Approximated to jedna hour plus accordingly došlo make for hromadnému transposition within stagnation mainsail, where to yet toward star world rule size within své prime èeské appearing.

Apparently I’m the maritime superpower of technologist stagnation! Quite vexing only picking up about 20% of what dude is saying, but there’s no such thing as bad press, as they say, so even in the worst case I ain’t bitchin’. Hope to have a real translation of this soon.