WMC - day 2
first off, i know this post is wwwwaaaaayyyyyy overdue, so apologies there. it seems like someone pushed the "turbo" button for my life and i haven’t had much time to write. i knew i wanted to weave a story about ultra music festival (UMF), complete with pictures and video clips, so it’s taken me a while to pull my act together. this is likely to be a long post, so here are details about friday in miami.
this was the 11th annual ultra music festival. last year was our first year attending and we had such a blast that we decided to do it again. the party runs for two days - 4:00 pm to midnight on friday and then noon to midnight on saturday. on friday, jonathan and i spent the day in south beach, lounging around, eating, drinking, etc. we went up to the rooftop pool at our hotel for a bit and relaxed while having a cocktail. here’s the view from there.
friday, we arrived at ultra some time between 7 and 8 pm, if memory serves. this time we clearly parked in a professionally run lot and didn’t have any issues with the car. :::phew::: parking was funny actually b/c there’s an opera house or concert hall of some sort right that was having an event that night, so there were tons of dressed up people going to the opera and people dressed for ultra, which you can imagine (and will see from some of the pictures) was distinctly different.
despite the size of this event, getting in was much easier than getting in to 90 degrees was the night before. at UMF, there were multiple lines to accommodate searching everyone and multiple people taking tickets. we got in to the party in less than 5 minutes. the entire party seems to be run extremely well. i can’t imagine what it takes to actually pull something like this off. an immense amount of coordination and reliable vendors must be key.
anyway, we started doing the rounds to check out the various stages and see who is spinning or performing where, when. here’s a picture of the first stage you come across. (the white glowing building in the background is the opera house/concert hall.) last year this stage featured breaks i think. this year, it seemed to feature electro.
i was a little bummed to discover that we missed josh wink. i had been looking forward to hearing him, but he spun early on friday, so we missed him. we spent friday listening to benny benassi, pendulum live, richie hawtin and carl cox. the first time i was introduced to pendulum was at starscape in baltimore - some time in the 2000s; can’t exactly remember when. at that time, they were laying down drums and bass and jonathan and i were really into it. since then, they’ve gone to a live format where they’re playing drums, guitars, etc. there seems to be a lot of that going on these days in EDM. at first it just seemed to be prodigy and i suppose rabbit in the moon (at least that's what it seemed like to me). now there seem to be a lot more groups going this route. at UMF this year alone, they featured prodigy, RITM, pendulum, infected mushroom, and for some reason the black eyed peas were there (WTF?) i’m not sure i’m into it, but to each his own. anyway, i think this is the first time i’ve heard pendulum doing their live thing. some of it was cool and some of it left me saying huh? i thought the tracks they did that were more drums and bassey were great. but then they’d switch to a track that was more like a top 40 song from a current alternative rock band with a male singer. (i’m terribly bad with band names or i’d insert some that come to mind. suffice it to say that it’s not along the lines of "boy bands" like in sync, but it’s more like the bands with older (20-something) male lead singers.) that kind of track was not my kind of thing. at one point though, they did a prodigy song that was awesome. here’s a short video clip i captured b/c i had to have that sound recorded.
richie hawtin’s set was okay. i found myself nostalgic for his sets back in the early 2000s. back then, he used to spin a non-stop, banging set that was like a full-on assault. he never let up and you danced until you couldn’t dance anymore. these days, he’ll throw down a good beat with a good groove and then drop it out just when you were really getting into it. then he’ll bring it back in for a bit and drop it again. for me, that’s a bit boring and kind of a let down, especially in that kind of environment. when i'm at a big party like that, i wanna get my groove on. going through a cycle of dancing-->standing-->dancing-->standing-->rinse and repeat b/c the music calls for it, rather than b/c my body calls for it, just doesn’t do it for me.
carl cox, on the other hand, tore it up! each year at UMF (or at least the 2 i’ve been to), there’s an area of music called "carl cox and friends." on each day there are maybe 5 or 6 dj’s there and carl cox always spins the closing set each night. i love watching carl cox spin b/c you can tell he always has a blast doing it. i’m not sure how he does it, but to me he makes it seem like he’s having a party in his backyard and invited 2000 of his friends and you’re among them. he seems genuinely interested and invested in you having a good time and at the same time he seems casual about it. he occassionally talks to the crowd, he dances throughout his set.... you can just tell he's having as much fun as the crowd is. i love it. and in addition to that, i love what he spins. it’s fun, it has energy, good beats, good groves.... i definitely got my groove on during his set. that was much fun. here’s a short clip i posted on youtube.
and that rounded it out for friday night. we had a blast!
this was the 11th annual ultra music festival. last year was our first year attending and we had such a blast that we decided to do it again. the party runs for two days - 4:00 pm to midnight on friday and then noon to midnight on saturday. on friday, jonathan and i spent the day in south beach, lounging around, eating, drinking, etc. we went up to the rooftop pool at our hotel for a bit and relaxed while having a cocktail. here’s the view from there.
friday, we arrived at ultra some time between 7 and 8 pm, if memory serves. this time we clearly parked in a professionally run lot and didn’t have any issues with the car. :::phew::: parking was funny actually b/c there’s an opera house or concert hall of some sort right that was having an event that night, so there were tons of dressed up people going to the opera and people dressed for ultra, which you can imagine (and will see from some of the pictures) was distinctly different.
despite the size of this event, getting in was much easier than getting in to 90 degrees was the night before. at UMF, there were multiple lines to accommodate searching everyone and multiple people taking tickets. we got in to the party in less than 5 minutes. the entire party seems to be run extremely well. i can’t imagine what it takes to actually pull something like this off. an immense amount of coordination and reliable vendors must be key.
anyway, we started doing the rounds to check out the various stages and see who is spinning or performing where, when. here’s a picture of the first stage you come across. (the white glowing building in the background is the opera house/concert hall.) last year this stage featured breaks i think. this year, it seemed to feature electro.
i was a little bummed to discover that we missed josh wink. i had been looking forward to hearing him, but he spun early on friday, so we missed him. we spent friday listening to benny benassi, pendulum live, richie hawtin and carl cox. the first time i was introduced to pendulum was at starscape in baltimore - some time in the 2000s; can’t exactly remember when. at that time, they were laying down drums and bass and jonathan and i were really into it. since then, they’ve gone to a live format where they’re playing drums, guitars, etc. there seems to be a lot of that going on these days in EDM. at first it just seemed to be prodigy and i suppose rabbit in the moon (at least that's what it seemed like to me). now there seem to be a lot more groups going this route. at UMF this year alone, they featured prodigy, RITM, pendulum, infected mushroom, and for some reason the black eyed peas were there (WTF?) i’m not sure i’m into it, but to each his own. anyway, i think this is the first time i’ve heard pendulum doing their live thing. some of it was cool and some of it left me saying huh? i thought the tracks they did that were more drums and bassey were great. but then they’d switch to a track that was more like a top 40 song from a current alternative rock band with a male singer. (i’m terribly bad with band names or i’d insert some that come to mind. suffice it to say that it’s not along the lines of "boy bands" like in sync, but it’s more like the bands with older (20-something) male lead singers.) that kind of track was not my kind of thing. at one point though, they did a prodigy song that was awesome. here’s a short video clip i captured b/c i had to have that sound recorded.
Click to viewrichie hawtin’s set was okay. i found myself nostalgic for his sets back in the early 2000s. back then, he used to spin a non-stop, banging set that was like a full-on assault. he never let up and you danced until you couldn’t dance anymore. these days, he’ll throw down a good beat with a good groove and then drop it out just when you were really getting into it. then he’ll bring it back in for a bit and drop it again. for me, that’s a bit boring and kind of a let down, especially in that kind of environment. when i'm at a big party like that, i wanna get my groove on. going through a cycle of dancing-->standing-->dancing-->standing-->rinse and repeat b/c the music calls for it, rather than b/c my body calls for it, just doesn’t do it for me.
carl cox, on the other hand, tore it up! each year at UMF (or at least the 2 i’ve been to), there’s an area of music called "carl cox and friends." on each day there are maybe 5 or 6 dj’s there and carl cox always spins the closing set each night. i love watching carl cox spin b/c you can tell he always has a blast doing it. i’m not sure how he does it, but to me he makes it seem like he’s having a party in his backyard and invited 2000 of his friends and you’re among them. he seems genuinely interested and invested in you having a good time and at the same time he seems casual about it. he occassionally talks to the crowd, he dances throughout his set.... you can just tell he's having as much fun as the crowd is. i love it. and in addition to that, i love what he spins. it’s fun, it has energy, good beats, good groves.... i definitely got my groove on during his set. that was much fun. here’s a short clip i posted on youtube.
and that rounded it out for friday night. we had a blast!