By Sunday, the weather got ultra-dreary and anything that wasn’t a wooden dance floor was now a mud bath. Everyone ditched their aforementioned style tribes – blister patches and rain gear galore! Fun fact: you could recognise the really enthusiastic dancers by the mud splashes on their thighs. There were plenty of those at the Selectors stage (mud splashes and enthusiastic dancers) – thanks to Rey Colino and Roza Terenzi. A few soggy steps away from Selector’s crisp sound system, you could already hear the beat from the Radar stage. Co-hosted by Berlin’s Hör radio, Radar was a new, three-floor, monkey-bar-like arena (but with absolutely no climbing allowed), replacing the iconic yet cramped Boiler Room stage that Dekmantel had long outgrown. Although Michail Stangl’s narration will forever be missed, Radar’s line-up was equally strong as that of its predecessor. Here, Fafi Abdel Nour opted for non-stop dancy beats and euphoric piano tracks when – like magic – the sun peeked out from under the clouds. After Fafi, Octo Octa took over the stage. In Dekmantel’s accompanying zine, Octo Octa was asked what emotion she wanted her set to evoke. “Love,” she answered. Barefoot and accompanied by a gleefully dancing Eris Drew in the DJ booth (if they aren’t couple goals, I don’t know which couple is), she spread disco and house and pure love.
So, where do you go after a set like that? As Dekmantel was nearing its final hours, with such an array of good options, that conundrum suddenly felt monumental. They call that FOMO, right? The Loop’s sound system made a housy: ‘unsh-unsh-unsh,’ accompanied by vocals fittingly singing: “New York, London, Amsterdam…” courtesy of Peach. Things were much gloomier in the UFO 2 stage: a dark and intimate hangar-like space with two screens serving visual effects. I’m not sure if it was the programming, set design or track selection (or likely, a combination of the three). But
Tzusing’s intense, deep and emotional set matched the dark and steamy vibe of UFO 2 perfectly. Nearing the end, he threw in a final, nostalgic remix of
How to Save a Life (I’m not crying, you’re crying). Our feet sore, legs muddy and souls well-fed, it was time to bike home – returning Dekmantel’s patch of forest to the real Gorpcore hikers and the local duck population.