- With everything from fire-spitters to masked dwarves to burlesque drag queens to knife throwers, Valhalla is a festival that's determined to leave a marked impression on the senses. An eight-hour showcase held at Amsterdam's cavernous RAI exhibition center, it is a spectacle of enormous scale. So enormous, in fact, that it's only really possible to scratch at the surface when summing up the night. In short though, it was an absolute riot.
As with many Dutch festivals, Valhalla's attention to detail was inspired, with a 1920s circus theme delivered with real craft and flair. A packed schedule saw a variety of genres on offer, with everything from deep house to techno to hyped-up Dutch trap. From the outset, the music lived up to expectations. Tensnake's warm-up made for an inspired start, his disco-tinged, summery house nicely contrasting with the utterly terrible solstice weather outside. The highlight of his set was "Blue Monday," a smile-inducing number that captured the crowd's buoyant mood.
The night's biggest draw was Amsterdam native Tom Trago. His dynamic set featured numerous twists and turns, and ultimately proved impossible to beat. Eats Everything and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs made for a winning combination, seamlessly swapping crowd-pleasing belters throughout their headlining back-to-back set. Solomun is another man who's become a staple of such big festivals as of late, and his pitch-perfect blend of pulsating, bass-driven house proved a welcome fit at Valhalla. Other highlights included Robert Hood's dirty techno (complete with a cheeky Donna Summer nod), Tommy Four Seven's deep and rumbling sounds and Yellow Claw's gloriously cheesy jump-up Dutch trap. All in all, it made for a dizzying but triumphant night.