Saturday the 5th of June the city of Arnhem welcomed ravers from around the country for the lucky seventh edition of FCA-Music's Free Your Mind festival. As part of this 'Lucky Number 7' themed edition, the 7th, 77th, 777th and 7.777th to buy a ticket to the festival were crowned to be the festival's special honored guests. We were not one of those but we were lucky enough to witness today's festivities. Lucky us!

Firstly let us take a look at what was on the menu for today. The biggest stage of the festival was the outdoor Rockit main stage where the live gig's of Sino (Technasia and Dosem) and Frequency 7 (Ben Sims and Surgeon) stood out together with the closing set by Felix Krocher. The second outdoor stage was the Mono stage with the likes of Mathias Kaden, Lemos and Livio & Roby. The Planet Rose area, hosted by the legendary Doornroosje club in Nijmegen, had some pretty exciting techno names in the form of Luke Slater as Planetary Assault Systems (live); Robert Hood live and Speedy J. Then there were the two other indoor area's of Sound of Love with Erick E and the Audio Bully's lined up and The Great Electronic Beats with Joost van Bellen and Nobody Beats The Drum (live). The two smaller area's of The Flipside and the Nightlife Circus bring the total amount of area's for today from five to seven. Seven editions, seven area's.

“After all these year the Mono area's setting under a bridge still has something special.”

With the weather forecasts predicting the first hot summer day we decided to get up and head for Arnhem early. After all, why spend more time at home when you can spend that time at the festival? After a 15 minute hike from the train station to the festival grounds and a quick check at the gates (including a sniff from a dog!) it was around 13:30 that we took our first tour around the festival. To our surprise it seemed like we were one of the firsts. What was everyone else taking so long? The main stage was still nothing but a deserted sand box. When our tour continued beyond the main stage we discovered that there actually were people at the area of the Mono Allstars United. It is also where our tour ended and our day began with a great set of Kabale und Liebe and Lauhaus. After all these year the Mono area's setting under a bridge still has something special.

The weather predictions came true today; while we started dancing around we could feel the sun burning on our skin. While we took another hike in search for some sun cream we ended up at the Planet Rose indoor area right at the right moment. Luke Slater, one of the techno legends from the United Kingdom, had only just begun his 1 hour gig as Planetary Assault Systems. Even though it felt our day had only just gotten started we got our asses kicked around by these heavy pounding techno beats. Music we totally dig but was it not just a little too early for this kind of thing? To our surprise Benny Rodrigues and Darko Esser seemed to make no objections at all and continued in style, techno techno techno! Today with a live set rather than a DJ gig, Robert Hood was today's Detroit representative who gave us a very different kind of minimal than the minimal that was played over at the Mono stage.

“(...) honestly, we felt the only right place to be was the Planet Rose area.”

In between all the action at Planet Rose we did make a few steps outside again to check out short bits of the sets by 2000 and One & Bart Skils, Slam and Frequency 7. Even the Mono stage where we spent so much of our time at earlier editions of the festival could not keep us interested for long. It was good to see the organization had taken measures against the heat by having people walk around with water sprays here and there. There also was a stand where people could get protected against the sun by being creamed in. There also were some theatrical acts happening at the main stage but honestly, we felt the only right place to be was the Planet Rose area.

As we returned at Planet Rose we were again reunited with other techno addicts just like us, of which many familiar party friends. Meanwhile Secret Cinema had started playing both a DJ set and the crowd. People were dancing, people were cheering, people were raising their hands in the air. Affirmative, this was indeed the place to be! After a great DJ set by Secret Cinema it was time for his protegee, Egbert (live). Egbert is still relatively new and as we had never seen him play before we were curious to find out what the hype was all about. For some the melodic leads between the beats may have been a tad too trancey but above all, Egbert's music sounded deliciously fresh and funky and still was very dance floor friendly. Keep your eyes out for this guy, this is someone who surely is going to make it.

“After a great DJ set by Secret Cinema it was time for his protegee, Egbert (live).”

Then on to the last gig of tonight, Jochem Paap. Jochem who? Jochem Paap, better known as Speedy J. Who has not heard of him or his releases? The Dutchmen is a living legend. Not only are his old classic records still played today, his way of Djing is also quite revolutionary. The man creates his own breaks, his own climaxes and as such basically his own tracks live on stage by combining his own drum loops and sound bites with (parts of) tracks and of course a ton of live effects. His set (which was great, by the way) goes mentioned as DJ set but it is more live as some 'live' gigs we have seen the past months. Speedy J's gig ended with 15 minutes festival time still to go including a fireworks closing at Felix Krocher's gig. Fireworks or no fireworks, our day was already a success.

With this seventh edition the Free Your Mind series in Arnhem ends. It was a great series, and today's was one of the best of the seven. Surely Free Your Mind will return in the year 2011 but as for this summer season the organization of FCA-Music has another big festival up its sleeve. On Saturday the 31st of July the sixth edition of Rockit! festival will take place in Maarssen (near Utrecht). The festival is titled 'Never Grow Up' and amongst the lineup are the headliners of Jeff Mills, Paul Ritch, Oscar Mulero and Dr. Lektroluv. Tickets are available through FCA-Music's website.