DJs among connections between Amsterdam, Vegas

Last summer, I visited Amsterdam for the first time. It was my favorite tourist destination I’ve ever been to. When you hear the word “Amsterdam,” you think of coffee shops, weed, legal prostitution and the Anne Frank museum. But it’s deeper than that.

The city center is a clean, pretty, safe, bustling and beautiful maze of streets, canals, bridges and ornate buildings from ye olden times. It took me an hour to walk from the outskirts to the center.

I didn’t speak a word of Dutch, but everyone was fluent in English. Locals were sweet, helpful, genuine and charming. I thought, “Other than Vegas, this is the only place I’ve ever seen where I could live.”

But even summer weather is cold. And Vegas is my spiritual home, so I’m not going anywhere.

Anyway, Amsterdam did remind me of Vegas for all the happy, smiling people socializing in a stately pleasure-dome of pleasure and freedom, flourishing under a distinct lack of judgment.

Some European visitors from England and Germany told me they consider Amsterdam to be the Vegas of Europe.

Suddenly, I understood why so many famous DJs are from Holland – it’s an intimate land of warm people who party and embrace pleasure.

(As a reminder, here’s a short list of famous Dutch DJs: Tiesto, Afrojack, Armin van Buuren, Ferry Corsten, Hardwell, Laidback Luke, Dash Berlin, Sander van Doorn, Chuckie, Fedde le Grand, R3hab and Sidney Samson.)

So I asked Dutch DJ Sunnery James if he sees that same Amsterdam-Vegas connection.

“The freedom and the mentality is really similar,” said James, of the DJ duo Sunnery James and Ryan Marciano. (They perform Saturday at Marquee.)

“Everything is possible (in Vegas). If something strange happens, they’re not going to be shocked, like, ‘Wow what happened?!’ ” he said.

“They’re like, ‘That happened, let’s go with the flow.’ It’s the same in Amsterdam. People really relax, and they don’t care if something strange happens.”

DJs in Amsterdam also bond easily, partly because they run into each other in the intimate environs, he said.

“You see everybody. You can walk. You can take a bike and you can do your business,” he said.

Naturally, James loves Vegas.

“The energy never stops. You can’t be (in Vegas) for a few weeks on the main Strip, because you will die,” he said and laughed.

“But I’ve been (in Vegas) a few days to chill out, outside the main (Strip), and it was nice and fun. There was a point I was even relaxing in Vegas.”

Another thing Amsterdam has in common with Vegas: Locals and tourists there were prettier than most places I’ve visited.

James knows about this. He is married to the Dutch “Victoria’s Secret Angel” Doutzen Kroes. They have a child.

And because Sunnery James and Ryan Marciano perform regularly at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas’ club Marquee, James has noticed all the pretty women here.

“I’m married, but I have eyes,” he said and laughed. “I don’t know how they do that, but the majority of that club is beautiful women.

“When I go to Marquee Vegas, my wife always wants to go with me – I don’t know why,” he joked.

Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.