IT'S hard to believe Woody van Eyden has been a DJ for 30 years.
A funny, unassuming Dutchman, for someone who has been spinning records longer than most top DJs have been alive, the 45-year-old looks surprisingly fresh faced.
Better yet, the man from Weert in Holland is billed several places higher than his y
ounger, more famous protégés who, like him, will perform to 12,000 up-for-it revellers at tomorrow night's Fantasylands Winter Music Festival at the Royal Highland Centre in Ingliston.
His only worry, he complains, is getting enough sleep to be fit for the show.
"If you want to know how much sleep I get," he laughs, sounding genuinely tired, "ask my wife. I've just come back from a gig, got lots of business stuff to sort out, and still recovering from a festival in Ireland last week.
"At the moment, you could say my life is like a pizza: a little slice of this, a little slice of that, and another little slice for sleeping. I'm a workaholic."
He's not joking, either. Anyone who reckons DJs lead the life of Reilly need only take a quick look at his resume to see Van Eyden is, arguably, the hardest working man in dance music.
A regional DJ champion in his native Holland back in 1981, by 1984 he was turning Ibiza into a magnet for young, party-loving dance fans, before heading to the UK and helping establish the acid-house and rave scene of the late 80s.
The busy deckspinner, however, found enough time to study marketing, using his expertise to set up his own booking agency, his own label, as well as a school for engineering and audio production.
Meantime, he was spending his free weekends bringing euphoria to practically every single discotheque around the world, as well as spending lots of time in the dance and singles charts. Living the dream? You bet.
"It is a dream, and I'm lucky to be doing what I love for a living," he says. "You hear people going on about doing it for the love of the music, but in my case it's really true.
"I love to get involved during a set. Back in the old days DJs used to do emceeing as well, and I love that sort of thing. I quite often stage-dive at my performances. We need more fun, more performance in dance music, especially where DJs are concerned."
And performance is what you'll get from him this weekend. In what's been billed as Woody van Eyden Vs Alex MORPH (Alex is one of Europe's top trance DJs as well as one of Van Eyden's best friends), it sounds more like a boxing match than two pals swapping tunes with one another.
"There will be no need for boxing gloves, I assure you," he protests. "Alex is one of my closest friends and what we'll be doing is part of the Back-to-Back (B2B) thing that we do. You know, he plays a tune, then I play a track, and so on. It makes for an exciting set, and gives me a few minutes to interact with the crowd while he's playing a track.
"The funny thing is, though," he says, "as close as we are, we never talk about music with one another. I don't really know why, but it never affects us working onstage.
"I first met Alex in 1991. I was on crutches at the time and had to do the emceeing bit at some event called Century – what a terrible name, huh? It'll soon be our 20th anniversary; however, we'll not be having any babies, I can assure you of that."
After two previous rip-roaring events at Ingliston, the latest Fantasylands festival looks like being the best yet with some of the biggest hitters in the industry taking their place alongside Van Eyden.
For the first time ever there's an extra arena as six brands join together to form one of the biggest dance festivals this side of 2009.
The main arena is hosted by none other than the mighty Godskitchen, one of dance music's most influential brands. If you like your trance DJs then you're certainly in for a treat as Ferry Corsten brings his full DVJ show to Ingliston.
So, with 12,000 clubbers crashing into town for the 6pm to 6am dance marathon, is Van Eyden looking forward to several thousand revellers cheering him on tomorrow night?
"Oh my God, the Scottish people are crazy, absolute nutters – I love performing for them. I just hope the weather forecast is good. I don't like bumpy aeroplane landings," concludes a sleepy Van Eyden ready to enter the land of nod.
Fantasylands Winter Music Festival, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Saturday, 6pm-6am, £40 (£70 VIP), 0131–335 6210 The full article contains 813 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
