Me and 6 other co-workers have been 5-years in service, and for this special occasion management invited us to visit a live concert called Friends of Amstel (Vrienden van Amstel Live). Because I had just quit my job at E-sites, I was in a unique position to go out with a bang - an opportunity I couldn't resist to take! 😜
P.S: Amstel is a Dutch beer brand. 🍺
Floyd restaurant in Ahoy
Of course one cannot go to a beer-sponsored live concert without a proper stomach foundation, so we had a 3-way dinner first.
For starters, I ordered the Carpaccio with Rotterdamse old cheese, pine nuts, rocket lettuce and pesto vinnaigrette.
Main dish was quite delicous: baked salmon with roseval potatoes and green asparagus with lobster gravy.
For dessert I had the brownie with chocolate mousse and a pistache macaron which looked so delicous I didn't even got time to take a picture of it...🤤🤤
So here's a picture of my first beer that evening.
Concert
The line-up of this 20th anniversary was: Armin van Buuren, Nick & Simon, Kensington, BLØF, Nielson, 3JS, DI-RECT, Mr. Probz, Xander de Buisonjé, Guus Meeuwis, Broederliefde, Diggy Dex, VanVelzen, Brainpower, Gers Pardoel, Typhoon, Jacqueline Govaert, Jeroen van Koningsbrugge, Rowwen Hèze, Marco Borsato, André Hazes, Lil’ Kleine, Paul de Leeuw, Rondé and Kraantje Pappie.
Although it only was a half hour drive, I have never been in Ahoy before. The organisation expects over 190.000 visitors, spread over 9 evenings. The light effects are awesome and the special effects also very impressive, floatings stages, and a tumbling DJ-booth was truely amazing. All performances were following each-other up without a break, it is a 4,5 hour long fully entertaining performance!
We had good standing places, so we had a good overview of all artists and there was plenty of room to dance and get beers...🍻🍻
Stages were constantly coming up and down from the ceiling, connecting the left, center and right stage
Even a DJ booth with Armin van Buuren dropped from the ceiling, tumbled twice and went back up, and immediately after that a band named Kensington performed next! Click the video below to open it on DTube:
▶️ DTube | ▶️ IPFS
Near the end of the performance, me and some friends sneaked into the VIP-stand, where we could stand closer to the main stage. Don't mind the misshaped duckface though, I already consumed a proper amount of Amstel beers to go out with a #BANG!
Thanks for reading!
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Image credits: some images were taken from http://www.amstel.nl/vriendenvanamstel