Gabry Ponte – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the DJ, Gabry Ponte, talks about some of his crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

In spring of 2000, I was on tour in the states with my band “Eiffel 65”.

Our first single “Blue” had been a great success there. There was no internet, so I didn’t have the slightest idea of what to expect … over there, but I was excited.

The first concert was at a big festival. Huge Dance festivals like nowadays didn’t exist, back then all the festivals were all about pop and rock. And then there was us in the line-up. As we get to the sound check, the sound engineer says: “Guys, by tech rider you requested a DJ booth on stage, what would you need that for?” – We said: “We do electronic music. There’s a DJ mixing and we have also a computer with a sequencer…”

I could have taken that question as a prophecy, but I didn’t really consider it at that very moment. Finally the moment of our show. Our set was about 30 minutes long. It was like 8 or 9 songs, all of them from our album “EuroPop” … That really was euroDANCE since all the tracks had about 130bpm. Four-to-the-floor beat and offbeat bass.

We get on stage in front of some 100.000 people. People were going crazy and just loved it, from behind the booth I had never ever seen so many people. After 10 minutes I figure that everybody was just standing there. Nobody was dancing. Bewildered looks on their faces. And I was thinking … it’s going really bad. They don’t like us. PANIC. The concert goes on like this and when we get off the stage the promoter comes up to us. I look at him, mortified, but he hugs me saying “Guys you were incredible”. I tell him … but people didn’t dance. He goes like … “But your music is not for dancing”. Me: “What are people dancing to in the clubs?”. Him: “R’n’B. Or house in the underground clubs”. And now everything made sense. We were the pioneers of the four-to-the-floor beat. They were just not ready yet. Now 15 years later I see festivals like Ultra or EDC where hundreds of thousands of people dance and jump all the time listening to their favourite DJ, and I smile when I think back to the day when a technician said to me … “What would you need a DJ booth on stage for?”

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