We brought a film camera to Dekmantel. Somewhere along the way, the roll got double exposed.

Annoying, until we got the pictures back.

Because there it all was. Two moments occupying the same frame. A face floating through a dancefloor. Someone’s body disappearing into the Bos. Daytime sitting on top of nighttime. Memories we could place and others we absolutely could not.

Basically, Dekmantel.

3 days in the Bos have a funny way of collapsing into one very long day. You remember the things you planned for and the things that caught you completely off guard. Saul Williams and James Massiah talking poetry in music first thing on Friday. Sampha stretching beyond what we thought we knew of him. Jeff Mills playing house. RHR and Skrillex creating unprecedented magic by fusing dubstep and baile funk at the main stage. Slimzee and Novelist at the Nest. François K and Suze Ijó at Greenhouse. Skin on Skin at the Loop. Riccardo Villalobos on Sunday.

Taken together, it felt like a small argument against putting music into neat little boxes. Different generations, geographies and musical histories constantly brushing up against each other. Things we already loved sounding new again. Things we had never heard sending us down rabbit holes on the bike home.

But the older we get, the less we think festivals are only about what happens on stage.

It is the bike through the Bos in the morning. Loitering around the food court for much longer than intended. The person you lose on Friday and somehow find again on Sunday. Running into an old friend while standing next to a new one. Someone kissing in the corner. Someone dancing like their life depends on it. Three miraculous days of sunshine. That tiny moment when you look around a crowd and realise that, for whatever reason, everyone has decided to be right here.

There is a lot pulling people away from each other at the moment. Which perhaps explains why being together can feel so moving when you really notice it. Thousands of strangers making room for one another, sharing music, ideas, sweat, grass, shade, water, cigarettes, whatever. Art cannot fix the world, but it can remind you that you are very much in it.

For three days, we explored, discovered, danced, watched, listened, wandered and occasionally did absolutely nothing.

We left tired, curious and ferociously alive.

Then the pictures came back.

A beautiful mess. Just as we remembered it.

Scanned and developed by Analogue Amsterdam