The Kingdom of Belgium – home to three native languages, beautiful sea shores, legendary chocolate and most delicious waffles. Amongst the various attractions such as those mentioned above, this beautiful European land has also become famous for hosting some of the greatest music festivals in existence – and those of the electronic music genres in particular – such as the well known Tomorrowland, which is considered to be the largest and most extravagant of them all. But it’s not the size we’re after as much as it is the quality of the content provided which is what truly thrills us. Therefore, we’d like to present our readers this year’s Belgian edition of the Extrema Outdoor festival, or by its acronym: XOBE.
For those of you who are not yet familiar with this absolutely legendary, annual event – shame on you! When speaking of house & techno, it’s one of those old-timers, real veterans-slash-pioneers of the scene things, which happens to be around for more than 20 years already, since early 1996, which is a lot in terms of festival life expectancy! Over the years it has rightfully won its place of honor as one of those venues any dignified techno fan must visit at least once in their life span.
So, what should we expect from the XO giant this year?
Let’s start with the crown jewel of it all, that is the mind-blowing line up which includes a vast variety of massive, top notch names such as Ben Klock, Chris Liebing, Dekmantel Soundsystem, DJ Koze, DJ Tennis, Eats Everything, Gaiser, Gerd Janson, Hernan Cattaneo, Hot Since 82, Jackmaster, Joris Voorn, Josh Wink, Kobosil, Lee Burridge, Luciano, Marcel Dettmann, Marcel Fengler, Maya Jane Coles, Michel Cleis, Michel de Hey, Mind Against, Moodymann, Nic Fanciulli, Nick Warren, Pan-Pot, Patrick Topping, Recondite (live), Rødhåd, Stephan Bodzin (live), Sven Väth, Tale Of Us to name a few. Impressed yet?
If that’s not enough – you will enjoy listening to all of those sonic titans while spoiling your ears with an uncompromising sound of Funktion-One’s brand new VERO sound system!
Needless to say that the stage design’s are – we quote – “OFF THE HOOK!”.
The location itself is nevertheless spectacular – the festival is being held in the beautiful De Plas in Houthalen-Helchteren, whose landscapes are rich with deep forests and a clear bottom lake, and a beach! The camping area is wide, properly facilitated and includes a variety of different camping solutions to suit everyone’s needs.
Another thing worth mentioning – this year XO holds and promotes a special agenda of huge importance to all the living beings of our planet: the theme of this year’s festival will be all about one of the most significant ecological issues of our time – global warming. As it is stated on XOBE’s official website, “The visitor will see, feel and even taste the evolution and consequences of global warming while walking from one side to another over the festival grounds. It’s time to act and it is up to all of us! The whole festival, decoration, animation and stages will be submerged in 3 transitional stages of global warming.
First there is a garden of Eden, with lots of nature and green, a carefree existence and very healthy food, fresh air and wide green spaces. In the middle you find yourself in an overpopulated city with lots of pollution, industry and overconsumption, the society in which we live today. The last area is a futuristic image of a world we are facing if we are not changing our way of life: an apocalyptic world with almost no natural resources left and floating camps made out of scraps and waste,”.
All things considered – we should definitely expect this journey to be nothing less than epic!
