Dekmantel is the festival that always gets it so right

Young Marco - Boiler Room, Saturday

Boiler Room's presence at this year's festival, as with last year, was undeniable. The line-ups were bigger, the soundsystem was beefed up and the queues for some of the bigger names were lengthy. On face value though what's not to like? It's the smallest and most intimate venue with four giant Funktion One stacks pointed inwards and you'll get to relive all your favourite sets when you get back (some of the live broadcasts have really soothed our blues). This year there was an emphasis on showcasing smaller, fresher talent in time-slots usually reserved for the big guns, as seen all over the festival and particularly with Peter Van Hoosen sandwiched between Klock and Dettmann on the closing night. But Saturday was our day for house and disco in the heat and the Young Marco, Antal one/two that was on offer was too much to resist. Marco was our highlight of the two and the Dekmantel-favourite whimsically weaved between house, disco, acid and classics. The Ambient mix of 'Last Rhythm' was the 'hands-in-the-air' moment towards the end of the hour that summed up the joy of the stage. Whether you're a lad from Scunthorpe or a Dam resident, it was a uniting moment at a uniting stage.

Special mention on this stage has to go to the joy-inducing pairing of Black Madonna b2b Mike Servito. Marea Stamper had already played a spellbinding set over at the Greenhouse earlier in the day but her and long-time friend Servito served up jam after jam in the tunnel of tech. Grain's unreleased 'Acid Test' being a particular highlight within a mix of jacking, fist-pumping bangers. An inspiration to most of the DJs there, Black Madonna found her perfect partner in Servito and everyone there revelled in it.

Nina Kraviz - UFO Stage, Saturday

Despite the blazing sun of the daytime on Saturday, the UFO tent was always on hand to provide a dark and sweaty atmosphere for no-holds-barred sounds. The stage is reserved for the hardest hitting acts on the bill, with the likes of Rødhåd, Blawan, and Marcel Dettmann stepping up across the weekend. We started our Saturday in there with Objekt who moved through some lighter sounds in his opening hour such as the B-side to SZCH’s ‘Untitled’ release from earlier this year, but ramped it up through tightly controlled mixing as a crowd gradually amassed. By the time Saturday’s headliner Nina Kraviz took to the stage at 9pm the tent was bursting at the seams with unbridled energy. Having caught Nina on a few occasions before, she’s been someone that has impressed without blowing us away, but on this night she was on absolute top form, pushing the crowd into overdrive with increasingly chaotic rave and acid cuts. Credit to the structural integrity of the tent, because the reaction to Nina blasting The Prodigy’s ‘No Good’ felt like it could have torn the roof off a brick-built club. We were half-expecting the stage to embody its name and spiral up into orbit.