Madrid has never been a city that comes to my mind when talking techno. That changed some weeks ago when I was invited to the Stardust event. While I was there, my mind opened when I saw people’s attitude to the music. The founders had a strong focus on creating something real. With this in mind, it is time to present my experience at Stardust, and the talk I had with one of Stardust’s founders: Andre.
The Venue
Centrally located in Madrid, the place was quite easy to find. Going inside, I instantly got a good feeling of the place – red lights, the vibrations in the walls, the smell of smoke, the edgy girls, and the strange guys lurking in the corners.
The place is big, and there were no signs – which i love. It makes it all the more adventurous. First, I went into a door and came out where I could see the whole dance floor from above. A chill out area, but the kind where the music is still really loud. I sat for a few minutes to take it all in, before I went down (and didn’t come back up until it was all over.)
Going into the dance floor was awesome. A lot of people smiling, or having their “I am serious about techno” face. All of them enjoying the warm-up and waiting anxiously for the headliner of the night: Tommy Four Seven. The dance floor was built for around 300 capacity, and with the lack of sitting spots it made people dance!
Sound
Sound quality was up and down, and sometimes a little to loud for my taste. It didn’t play that well on the mid-to-hi levels, which may have been a result of clipping. All in all, it was good enough, and it did the job for the night.
Lighting
Lighting was excellent – they did a really good job on varying with lasers, strobes, and standard colored lights. The colors of the evening was red and blue, which I’m always a fan of when going to techno parties. They also had a a VJ that was playing some old-school projections, which fitted perfectly into the place and the mood.
Atmosphere
The vibe of the night was good. I got lost in a sea of sweaty happy people dancing and hugging each other. Tommy Four Seven was ruthless and didn’t save anything. He completely destroyed the dance floor with brutal tracks which shook the dance floor over and over.
The people hung onto it and danced their asses off all night. I give all my respect to the feeling of unity and togetherness that was made that night. We were together creating techno in Madrid.
The chat
First of all, lets start with some history: How long have you been running the concept, and how many people are you?
The concept started 13 years ago, first as an itinerant session once a month and since 2007 with our residency at the venue Cool every Friday.
Since the very first day me and my partner Sara Loeh have been running the club with an amazing team of around 50 people that collaborate with us including night manager, graphic designers, PRs, communication, social media, djs, photographers, visual artists, etc.
And how has it been running a techno concept in Madrid?
Madrid is an amazing city full of energy and proposals. In fact, we feel that right now is a really hot moment as Madrid techno lovers are more and more interested in listening to new things and living other experiences far from the usual names that you can find in bigger venues. They really appreciate to live and discover different proposals with a higher cultural level or out of the typical commercial club scene.
What are you trying to achieve/ what is your vision?
Our vision is to continue making the scene grow. In Madrid many collectives were working the past years to have a very healthy scene and for us to have a club with our capacity being a success for so many years is something amazing. But we won’t stop here, our plan is to continue creating new and different bigger events to attract more people from other areas. Meanwhile we are also opening a new club in October called Zimmer26 that will focus developing other kinds of proposals from the local scene. It will have a big techno presence but also different electronic music and art disciplines from performances to visual installations.
When I take a look at your previous and upcoming bookings, I can see some really great techno artists. Do you feel that the scene in Madrid is engaging with them and appreciating the vision you’re driving?
Thanks a lot for your words! We are very proud of the booking work we are doing and our amazing resident artists as Svreca from Semantica, Alex Guerrra and Nöle. I think our crowd appreciate the vision we are driving with international guests, the work of our residents and the effort we are doing to push national labels with showcases of the best who represent our scene in and out our country.
Any plans to make Stardust happen outside Madrid?
We would love to. There is something on the table that hopefully we can announce soon. We are looking forward to more to come.
Any last words?
Thanks a lot for visiting us!!!