The Secret Diary Of Weekender aged Older Than The Sands Of Time and Younger Than Geri Halliwell In which PlayLouder accompanies Trash's Erol Alkan, as he takes the club to Belgium's biggest party, Bel Mondo, @ SMAK, Gent. Note - This is our first time abroad, gentle reader... Friday February 24th 9:30 am Phone ringing wakes thy battered, bruised and rather hung over PlayLouder from its lush slumber. We are meant to be boarding the Eurostar at 10:00. Shit. 9:55 am Arrive sweaty, panting and chest on fire at London Waterloo. Have 5 minutes to spare so purchase a four pack and a small bottle of gin from the extortionately priced shop. Board train, minus search and without displaying passport. We could be an illegal immigrant smuggling crack. What's wrong with these people? After all the talk of "future travel" and whatnot, expected more from the Eurostar than a seat and a crap bilingual magazine to read. Drink all our booze and fall asleep. 12:30pm Wake up and panic. Feel a bit drunk. Have we missed our stop? No, we are in Brussels. Abroad. Not in London. We can taste clean in the air. Don't get searched again as we leave, wish we'd brought something illegal. Are accosted on the way out by a camera crew and a strange man accompanied by a linguist. We are interviewed for a Eurostar documentary. Tell them that the service would be improved by films and nice ladies. Comply with their wishes and tell the camera we are the head of a startup and we are in Belgium for a very important meeting. Admit that we know nothing about bonds. Or shares. Ho ho. As we have two hours to kill before we meet Erol and co., we sit ourselves down in a bar and order a drink. Get confused when nobody seems to want any money, but all is well once a waitress turns up with a receipt and explains the local way to get booze. Much better than queuing for ages at the bar. A strange bald old man turns up to DJ and plays 'Sex On The Beach', then sings over the top. Follows with 'One More Time' and all the old men in the bar jump up and dance with each other. An aged gent who claims to have a bomb in his briefcase dances with your confused Loud Playing One, then we leave, feeling a bit icky. Puke on station floor. 4:00pm Get lost in station, but find Erol anyway. Armed with great big huge metal DJ boxes we hook up with Dirk, a ridiculously affable dude who books and promotes SMAK. He then drives us to our hotel, which is in actual fact a boat, moored on the side of the city of Gant's canal. The boat is ace - white, big, huge room with MTV and has round windows looking out at Gant. When we wake up in the morning we will see the river. Baboom! 5:00pm Dirk takes us into town to go record shopping. The guys downstairs are playing hugely loud hip hop, and we're beaten to the purchase of one particularly ace record ("Let's take ECSTACY! Let's take ECSTACY!" etc.) by Belgium's equivalent of Tim Westwood (but cooler, and more knowledgeable), who is very nice and will be playing tomorrow. Immerse ourselves in hip hop vinyl heaven on the top floor for two hours. 7:30pm Dirk reckons it's time to eat, which is true, and takes us to an Italian munchery that has been run by the same family, father to son, for generations. "They have fed me since I was a boy," notes Dirk, happily. We are amused to see a Soulwax sticker on the stereo system. David and Stefan from the 'Wax turn up and immediately make us feel hugely welcome. Dine on REAL hamburger with cheese and egg and onions and an amazing sauce. Then head over to have a gander at the modern art museum in which Erol will be popping his 2500 capacity-headlining cherry tomorrow. It's simply breathtaking - colossal in size, walls adorned with amazing paintings (and one massive photo of an incredibly plain looking girl), big pillars and statues all over the place, and out the back, what looks like a recreation of Roswell - vast metal space ships and orbs... "You wait till you see it tomorrow," grins Dirk, before filling us in on the lunatic space aged club shit that's being constructed. Cool. But why the hell are they going to let 2500 pissed up and pill addled disco children in here to make it ugly? They'll tear it apart! 10:00pm We're in Hotsy Totsy - a loungecore-tastic 19th century-style drinking den - amazing gold flowery walls, glass tables, sweet music, and an evil breed of lager called Westmaille that tastes like wine and kicks your ass drunk at the tune of 18%. "It sends you mad," notes Stefan, scarily. 11:00pm We are in what passes in Belgium for a "bar". For a start, it's open, and will be all night, and will serve all night, morning etc., but what sets it apart from EVERY bar in London is the bar man. A beaming mass of energy, the guy bombs around like the Tasmanian Devil on happy juice, and after Dirk informs him that we are to drink for free all night long, he sets about creating us a series of ever lusher cocktails with the gusto of a 2-year-old opening Christmas presents. And these are no ordinary cocktails - they are God's cocktails, and on each return trip to the bar we are created a new one, until he runs out of ideas and we go through them again... But that was later. First we gaped at the women (a developing theme for the Weekend), and then got shown around Soulwax's rehearsal space upstairs - which is full of silver things and lights and record decks and masses of crazy computer equipment and has shitloads of records in the bathroom... 3:00 am Back downstairs, David, Stefan and Erol are taking turns at DJing, and PlayLouder is getting drunker and drunker and soon there will be No More Brain... Trips to the (unisex) toilets increasingly end up with us being pulled by a series of sadly forgotten faces apart from one - the first encounter involved a request for a cigarette, followed by "I know not much English... maybe I love you?" from a terribly cute small blond creature. We asked her if she did, but the language barrier prevented any understandable response. Boo. Anyway. Lunatic house is whumping, and PlayLouder is forced to bound about the place MCing about the glory of Belgium ("Wow - this place is ace and we fucking off our face if you see a dragon chase oh my god this head's a waste" blah blah etc.). Apparently, this bright red sweating chaos, this beautiful madness, this Valhalla in which we are is "a bit of a quiet one". "This is just the before thing, everybody is saving themselves for tomorrow," Stefan half apologises. Jesus H Tin Tin. God help us then... Saturday February 25th 12:00 pm We are awakened by a chirpy Mr. Alkan, confused as to where we are and head throbbing like cartoon violence. "Breakfast!" chirps the chirpy one... Baboom! We're in the Boatel! We can see water out of the window and... BL-AOW! We poke our battered noggin out of the window, into the crisp, fresh, COLD air and see, not only water, but a white shore, white buildings... Outside there's nine inches of snow on the ground. Who put that there? 2:00pm Having breakfasted (Laughing Cow, 5 different kinds of bread, chunky fresh as fucking orange juice) and worked out how we got home (somebody drove us. Possibly.) we wander out into Gant, lead by sometime rock star Stefan, who today, Matthew, will be our tour guide. And guide he does, explaining local myths, pointing out buildings, taking us to coffee shops, shop shops, and all the while the sun is shining and snow crunches beneath our feet. Erol and cigarette-hating, but perma-charming girlfriend Chandra gasp a lot, PlayLouder beams like a tourist fool... 4:00pm Jolly host blokey Stefan shows us around his swanky playboy pad, a Bond-esque bachelor den of pure wanton indulgence, and any self respecting motherfukkah's dream home. The best bit, out of many a best bit, is the DVD room - white all over, wooden floor, hy-awj sofa, hy-AWJER telly, billions of DVDs (nicked from the UK's finest HMV outlets we're told) and five speakers. It's like being in the cinema, but whiter. And better, since there are no irritating little children chattering behind you (although Erol is, as ever, bashing records out at spleen shattering levels in the next room. Bless). 5:00pm We hit The Best Dance Record Shop In The World... Ever!, (actually called Music Man, but we like our name for it), which is laid out like a club - different rooms playing different stuff VERY LOUD. Stefan bounds about the place like he owns it, leaping over counters to smack down records, many of which we are forced to purchase 'cos they RULE... The staff look on fondly as the tunes pour forth... 6:00pm Stefan is accosted by a Belgian Big Brother person, who wants to interview him in a strip club surrounded by naked women. Big Brother bloke thinks this would be "really cool". Stefan does not. 11:00pm We are in an Art Museum. Whilst previously tonight we have dined on incredible tagliatelle and ham in a restaurant, listened to the new Daft Punk record in David's future-retro sleaze pad, snorted bloody good cocaine, etc., all of that is just Stuff, and nothing, fucking NOTHING compared to what our eyes and brains just cannot take in. Red, blue shimmering, shining, booming madness engulfs us as Stefan bombs around the place, introducing us to all the DJs, staff, visual artists... we gasp at the chill out (pill out) room, where mashed up punters lounge on sofas and beds and watch projections of fire, water, trees, seas and more on the walls... whichever way you look it's there, the fire crackles and burns and freaks us the fuck out... the trees wave in the wind... 2:00am We're coming up on a pill Dirk gave us earlier, and whilst we do pills by the truckload back home, four at once don't come close to this one and we're only halfway there... We've been grinding and ass shaking and booty bassing in the R 'n' B room, we've become the centre of the most bizarre love triangle (which blows up in the pill out room as the tiny cute creature "relieving" us is interrupted by her boyfriend, who doesn't actually mind but wants to kill us anyway. Or something), we've seen the best dressed, maddest, coolest, friendliest people in the world, we've seen more beautiful women in one space than Hugh Hefner, Caligula and/or Beverley "I take photos for page 3 hahaha" Goodway ever have, we have drank wonderful combinations of spirits and juices... and now Soulwax are playing Daft Punk, and as that turns into house records and the beats fill our brain and we nearly explode, yet another beautiful thing steps into our bubble, and for no reason, just BECAUSE people in Gant are fucking great, she kisses our perspiring face and gives us water. Fuck wow jism. 3:00am UP. UPUPUPUPUPUP... Head a frenzied whirlwind of thoughts bordering on the dangerously hippy, PlayLouder MCs with a huge thug of a man, drinks a glass of vodka (courtesy of last night's friendly barman) and then Erol strikes. And the disco bunny five-gazillion BPM divas shaking ass on the floor roar their approval as tune after tune slices forth... mixing the "Trash aesthetic" (Rock 'n Roll that you can dance to, dance that you can rock to, ugly-beautiful that reeks of sex... Sort of.) with crowd pleasing house, the reason he's really here becomes rudely apparent when 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life' makes way for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and the floor erupts like a particularly fucked-off volcano. 6:00pm You what? We don't fucking have a clue, mate. Our barely legible "notes" read like children's first attempts at explaining fun: "wow great lush amazing brilliant shit fuck oh my fucking god oops sorry mum I won't swear again honest MOTHERFUCKIN BL-AOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"... And so on. So no more info for you, dear diary. It finished at six, and as Belgium's wonderful youth head on to yet more parties, PlayLouder, Alkan and co. head back to the Boatel, for our last hours of rest in this incredible town. Tomorrow we will fail to catch our train, and get entertained by Da Host Wit' Da Most (Dirk, that is) all day and evening and dance around in the falling snow. But hell, we are tired, and can type no longer. The museum, we should note, didn't get trashed, as Gant's kidz have respect for the fact that they were allowed to have that party in there. Every single person in the whole building left happy. This Weekender, for the first time ever, contained no Fear, and no Loathing, just seemingly endless quantities of lush. But don't worry horror lovers. Next week sees us back in London, and thus, no doubt, Shoreditch, so terrible tales of vile shit shall be yours once more. Just remember - It's so sad to fall asleep It separates people Even when you're sleeping together You're all alone So stay awake And keep on keepin' on PlayLouder would like to thank Dirk, Stefan, David, Erol, Chandra, Phil (fuckin' 'avin' it mate) and all the beautiful, amazing people who made our time so full. WUB 4EVA XXX © Playlouder 2001 Click here to read the original