Dance Room on tour #1 - The tale of the Formaggio Haps

Dance Room on tour #1 - The tale of the Formaggio Haps

Listen to the entire story here:

In the end of March it was announced by Radio Emotions, that their radio show “Dance Room” with Dallas & Geekerd, Magna Romagna, Mr Dendo and DJ Maxwell was going on tour…

After being reminded of the tour almost daily by Radio Emotions, we thought “hey, why not go?”, It’s four awesome dj's/producers in one time, and we might never get the chance again - so we decided to do it!

The event was going to be at a small local club called “Shabba”, located in a industrial area in the city of Cantú, a little north of Milano.

It ended up being only Rune and Michael going - so we sat down one day to book it all, and decided to rent a car as well so we had a bit more freedom, and damn we’re happy we did that.

We had to get the flight from Copenhagen to Milano (Malpensa) at 9:40, so we decided that Michael should stay the night at Rune’s place, so we could get a bit more sleep and go directly from there to the airport…
We had a scare watching “The Boy” while we ate a box of Formaggio Haps.
When there was one left Michael had gotten so many, that he got a bit nausea and we kept on saying “It’s yours the last one!” “no, it’s yours” back and forth...
Of course when we woke up, the first thing Rune asks is “You want the last Formaggio Haps for breakfast?” and Michael just ignores it…
We get ready, and out the door we go!

We arrive in the airport in good time, and it only says 9 min queue in the security - at the security Rune’s bag gets taken to the side and checked (he starts sweating) ....then it gets drug tested (now he is all wet) ...it’s clean, and we continue!
After getting some supplies for the flight, we headed for the gate ...all was on time ...all was smooth, even Michael’s “fake-look-a-like” passport was accepted.

One hour and 20 min later we are getting ready to land in Milano (Malpensa). In the back, we can hear a couple discussing loudly that what should have been a love vacation to Milano, now seem to be a split-up, and the guy is going to take the next flight back home.

We arrive to the airport and are welcomed by the italian summer sun! We try to find out where our car is parked since it only says “In Terminal” on the papers, and we can’t seem to find a place where to ask ...we walk a bit back and forth, inside to outside to inside - We decided to ask at one of the other car-rental desks, and discovers a small sign on the disk, inside the Europcar- office with the logo of our rental firm - Keddy! Woohoo. We pick a number and wait…
Then it’s our turn, first Rune has to fill out some papers - then got told that the car isn’t at that Terminal yet (ok, fair enough, we came 20 min before scheduled) after some calls back and forth, and dusins of signatures later the shop assistant says “ok, you get the Mini Cooper” and we were like “yay” (we thought we got a Twingo or something)

We went to the car, and started to drive ...Rune had downloaded Maps for his Windows tablet, so we could use that to guide the way - the problem was just that the GPS was not working…
Luckily, Michael had the map of Italy from the last time on his phone, so we got that working and off we went!
There was no traffic ...at all - it took about 45 min to get to Cantú. When we arrived it should be easy to find, cause the B&B (La Locanda Di Caterina) and Discotek (Shabba) was both located on the same street called Via Milano ...but it wasn’t - ok, the Discotek was easy to find, and that’s why we went to take a look, cause we couldn’t find the B&B - we drove up the road back and forth several times in pretty heavy traffic to find our damn B&B ...we gave up, and went to ask on a ENI gas station/café - a guy takes us around the building, and a woman comes out with a bike - and we think to ourselves “Is she going to drive and show us where it is? wow” ...nope, that’s first then, we find out that the ENI gas station/café IS the B&B!. At that time it’s around 15:30 and we hadn’t gotten any lunch yet, so Rune pulls out the fucking Formaggio Haps and asks “I have this if you want?!” he brought the damn thing to Italy!! (I guess it was the reason they had to check his bag…)
Anyway, we leave our stuff and heads out to find something to eat ...Luckily, Rune had seen a McDonald's sign near by… It turned out to be located inside a shopping mall called “Cantú 2000”.
After eating we went looking at the shops, and then we decided to take vantage of the amazing weather, and went sightseeing in the center of Cantú, before going back to the B&B for quick nap, so we could last the entire evening/night!

Around one hour later we woke up, and went to shower and got ready for the big night!
(while Rune was in the shower Michael took the Formaggio Haps still laying on the bed and pasted it into Rune’s bag)
Then it was time to get some dinner… First we went to the center of Cantú again, cause we thought we had seen some restaurants there, but no, so we went to the street where our B&B and Discotek was, because we had seen some eating places on the map - we can only see café and bars - then we see a Ristorante and Pizzeria called “Canturina” and it seems packed! but we try anyways ...luckily there is a table for us - we both decide to have Carbonara and we wait… some more people comes into the ristorante, and they keep saying something with “la radio” and then continues inside another room, then a while after a new group of people comes in, and Michael gets eye contact with the one in front ...Michael thinks to himself, “hmm he looks familiar, where have I seen him before”. We smile and says “Ciao” (no, we were not flirting) and I say to Rune; ”I think that was Mr. Dendo”, and it turns out that it was him going to the “la radio” room, which was Radio Emotions that had arranged something.
We get our Carbonara and then we’re off to get some real italian Gelato, and then it was close to party time! so we went back to the B&B to get the charged batteries for GoPro, and earplugs ....just in case.

We arrive at the entrance of the club with our pre-filled forms that Dallas had mentioned, to make the entry go faster - we were there around 22:00 - the doors opened at 22:30, thanks to the amazing weather and the sound of the music playing inside, it was ok to stand outside. Standing in the small queue, the first one we meet is Declan, another guy coming from outside Italy, Scotland to be more precise, together with his sister. He mentions that it was Dr.Bass standing in the entrance… Cool he is there too.
Then Dallas comes by… then Maxwell comes by… then we get in - our names are on the list, yay - into a pretty small room, smaller than expected - but there wasn’t that many people so it was actually the perfect size, it got the feel of a private party.

As we had heard from outside the music was already playing, and the speaker of the night Miky Heic was getting started too, and the one on the decks to warm up was Genna, from Magna Romagna.
Shortly after Maxwell started the true show with a sick sick basso in lento style! he played for about 2 hours, love his mixing! and during his show the other artists just walked around among us - a very relaxed attitude, thumbs up for that. Declan, the scotish guy, also introduced us to a couple coming all the way from Austria!

Later we went for some fresh air, and saw Declan talking with Dallas and Geekerd, we joined and introduced us, then Dallas said “Ah, moment” ...he came back with two copies of his R.A.W. Project EP which was going to be given out to the crowd, exclusively at this event - only 28 copies - but he had reserved one for the ones coming from outside Italy - Thanks, Dallas!

We went back inside to hear Mr. Dendo pumping the bass …very various basses, and the mood in the Dance Room was going crazy ...jumping and dancing, singing along.
Near the end we thought “hmm, where is Maxwell” and thought he was gone, so we went out to see if we could find him, and there he was, outside talking. Then one of the guys talking to Maxwell, comes over to us and asks where we’re from and, we say “Danimarca” ..then he tells Maxwell, and then Maxwell comes over to greet us and he is very thankful that we took all the way from Denmark to come and see them. We talk with him about various things (well his english is not that good, so we got help from his wife and other friendly people around) ...and asks if something new is coming - to that he says “next album ...october ...I hope”. So there you have it - true insider info!

In the meantime Dallas & Geekerd was getting on stage, so we headed back in to check it out. Those two were dressed in neon from top to bottom, a really entertaining show with some mean ass tracks! Halfway in the set we noticed Dendo, and went to say hi - the music were too loud to hear each other, so we went outside and ended up talking about the history of italo dance, the popularity, and our relations to it. This was even Dendo’s first live performance, so a big thing for him too.
All of them were so easy to talk to, so friendly and thankful that we came. Didn’t talk so much with Genna though, he was busy getting drunk and partying and at the end it was his turn to mix!
After his set, it was “afterparty”-time with the speaker Miky Heic, at the console with assistance from Maxwell playing a few classic italo dance tracks ...perfect ending! We then said goodbye, and went to the car - all the way to the car there was a trail of puke, empty cups etc. and we feared something had happened to our rented car - but luckily everything was fine! pew...

We went back to the B&B to sleep, it was around 4:30 at that time, and we set the alarm to 11:00 - according to the booking papers we had to be out between 10:00 - 12:00 - then at around 10:45 someone tries locking up our door, we jump up and think WTF!? should we be out now or what? have we looked wrong?...while the one at the door gives up and says “Merde” when she goes away. We quickly start packing our stuff, and she (the one at the door) comes back up and everything is fine, we are not late ...so we take a deep breath, put our stuff in the car and then heads for breakfast. We eat quickly and then we’re off, it’s only 11:30 and we have to drop of the car at 16:30, so plenty of time. We then decide to go sightseeing towards the mountains, and we come to a place with two lakes called Lago Alserio and Lago Pusiano with small steep streets, old houses, church towers on every corner almost, with an amazing panorama over the lake and city. We do a few stops here and there… and then it’s time for a final gelato before we go, so we went to the Cantú 2000 and enjoyed a gelato in the hot sun, before heading to the airport. On the way there, we were listening to Molella’s show on m2o, that was epic! In the meantime Michael’s phone was close to death, and we needed it to guide the way - the moment we arrived to the airport it shutdown.
We arrived around 15:30, and after turning in the car, we spent some time in the sun watching some planes take-off - and we could see there was an Emirates at one of the gates.

While we sat and waited on the info about what gate to go to, we noticed that the big "Emirates" plane was moving, and getting ready to take-off! Michael takes the GoPro and starts filming, meanwhile Rune wants some candy for the show, and then finds the Formaggio Haps in the bag!

On board the plane, we wanted to review the videos from the GoPro, but sadly Rune's tablet was very low on batteries, and we only saw four videos - bummer

Back in Copenhagen, Michael checks his pocket for his car key …and what does he find? the damn Formaggio Haps!! for fuck sake ...it has been on a trip to Italy and back, lucky damn Formaggio Haps it’s still alive!

The End

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All in all an awesome trip, a memory for life, with such friendly people - we are definately ready for the next one (....hopefully in September)

10 out of 10 would do again.

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