ultra music festival review
now for the party review….
after taking two alleve and resting some more friday after getting to the hotel, we made our way down to the first night of the party. three words - oh my god! first of all, the venue was awesome. it was outside in a park, bicentennial park. on one side of the park was the bay and around the park on the other sides were enormous high rises. it was really kinda cool to have electronic music just out there, you know. not hiding, but really out there. there were five different main areas of music (plus a couple of smaller areas with local djs i think) and i was really impressed with the way the sound didn't bleed through from one space to the next. sure, there were places where you could hear beats from 3 different stages, but when you were actually in the area of one stage, you couldn't hear the beats from the others. there were also lots of vendors, two areas of food, and beverages (both alcoholic and non) were easy to get to without much waiting. there was also a pretty sizable staff of people who were constantly walking around cleaning up, changing out trash bags, etc. so the place was well-maintained, which is impressive given how much trash ravers simply throw on the ground. for those who've been to starscape, it reminded me of that, only much bigger, which you’d expect given the probable budget and the djs attending WMC.
on friday, all we were really interested in hearing was “carl cox and friends” (josh wink, richie hawtin, danny tenaglia) spinning 10 years of the classics. the carl cox and friends area was a HUGE tented area that thankfully had platforms in the back where i was able to sit down and see everything and chair dance. :) we missed wink, which was disappointing, but richie was spinning when we got there. there was some great music and some so-so music from him. the best was toward the end of his set, when he broke out spastik from recycled plastik. that was awesome. i wasn't as impressed with danny tenaglia's set as i wanted to to be. i had never heard him spin before, so i was excited to hear him. there were a few too many vocals for my taste. the underlying music i thought was good, but there was too much singing. maybe that was due it being a classics set? don't know. in any event, carl cox closed the night and his set was amazing as usual. he went OFF! i was bummed i couldn't dance, but i was so happy that jonathan made me get on the plane to go down. the party ended at midnight, so i hobbled my way back to the car and we headed back to the hotel for sleep (and more alleve).
i managed to lie pretty flat friday night, so saturday was better. i stayed on the round-the-clock regimen of alleve and did a lot of slow, careful stretching throughout the day to keep me moving and to ease up the back spasms. i was able to walk better and by myself (didn't need to grasp jonathan all the time) and could stand up more straight, although not all the way. i'm still not standing up straight and it's monday afternoon. anyway....
saturday, we had lunch at the grill by the pool of our hotel overlooking the beach. it was a sunny 75 or so - just perfect. around 2:00 or so, we headed downtown for day two of the party. this was the big day where there were lots of DJs we wanted to hear. the whole day was just amazing. we heard some pretty great music. the sets that stick out in my mind are:
*donald glaude and dj dan spining a 2 x 4 set - it was fun, light-hearted in a way, and you could tell that dj dan and donald glaude were having a blast up there.
*uberzone playing a live set - always cool to see and he had some funky sounds to go with the breaks
*evol intent - had never heard them before, but they laid down some sick dnb
*david guetta (who i've never heard of before)
*carl cox - again
i don't know that much about techno and i certainly wouldn't know what's current, but it was clear to me that the set carl cox spun friday night (the classics night) was much different than the set he threw down saturday. i can't articulate different like how, but it was definitely different. that was kind of cool to experience.
david guetta spun in the carl cox area. we only caught a track or two, but what we heard sounded good enough that we went to look on the set list and see who it was. i’ve never even heard of him, so i’ll have to check him out.
other notes:
i found it interesting that sasha and digweed were not on the main stage. there was a time when they were the headliners, but at this event, they were on one of the other four stages. that being said, they still had an enormous crowd of people that certainly would have filled nation. (karen and others - nation was the big club in DC where we used to go hear electronic music. it's been bulldozed for the new baseball stadium.) the main stage, which had trance djs, had the largest crowd i've ever seen at something like this. there must have been 4000+ people listening to the djs on the main stage. seriously. every time jonathan and i went to the top of one hill where we could see the whole area, we were amazed. i wish i had taken a picture in the daytime. i've never seen anything like it.
the mc's in the dnb area pretty much ruined the dnb for us. the mc's went non-stop, sometimes two at the same time, and were so loud that we couldn't hear the music very well. we were really looking forward to hearing what's current in dnb and that just didn't happen. we ended up skipping a lot of the dnb djs we wanted to hear b/c of it. we'd swing by, check it out for a couple of tracks and then give up and move on to a different area of music. it's kind of sad really. we talked about it a lot at dinner last night. the number of people in the dnb area seemed small to us. we've seen larger crowds listening to dnb in smaller venues, so we know there are people who like the music. we're wondering if the constant mc'ing of the mc's drives away people who want to hear the music. and we suspect it definitely drives away people who don't know much about dnb or haven't really heard it before if they come by to check it out. it's just so sad. the music is typically very well produced, so if you like a fast break beat with good basslines, you can't go wrong. (unless of course someone is yelling over the music telling you to put your hands in the air and show some love for dj fill in the blank.) it was frustrating and a bit of a let-down.
the crowd was so diverse and interesting. i have always loved the spectacle of a rave/party/whatever you want to call it. we saw a pretty large contingent of people who looked just like us and were in our age group or older, which was cool. there was still a candy raver contingent, which is to be expected. then there was this other group of people that i've never seen before. i have no idea what they're called. i'm sure there's a name for their style - there'd have to be b/c it's definitely distinctive. i called them yarnheads simply b/c it was descriptive enough that jonathan knew who i was talking about. they literally had yarn and other kinds of things tied throughout their hair. think weave or hair extensions - made out of yarn, curling ribbon you'd put on a present, etc. seriously. have you seen this before? i tried to take a picture with my phone, but it didn’t come out all that great.
this second picture isn't of yarnheads, it's just a group of people who everyone seemed fascinated with.
and what’s with the furry legwarmers? when did this become a trend? they were everywhere! where do you find these things? at the local mall?
i was also surprised at the number of girls wearing tights underneath everything - dresses, underwear, bikini bottoms, shorts, you name it. and the tights came in all different colors and with varying hole sizes (some fishnets and some in other holy patterns i’ve never seen before). i thought this went out in the 80s, but i guess it's just another example of history repeating itself. :)
all in all, we had a blast. we’re really glad we went down for the long weekend. we’d definitely go again - maybe for longer so we can check out more parties and get more beach time.
after taking two alleve and resting some more friday after getting to the hotel, we made our way down to the first night of the party. three words - oh my god! first of all, the venue was awesome. it was outside in a park, bicentennial park. on one side of the park was the bay and around the park on the other sides were enormous high rises. it was really kinda cool to have electronic music just out there, you know. not hiding, but really out there. there were five different main areas of music (plus a couple of smaller areas with local djs i think) and i was really impressed with the way the sound didn't bleed through from one space to the next. sure, there were places where you could hear beats from 3 different stages, but when you were actually in the area of one stage, you couldn't hear the beats from the others. there were also lots of vendors, two areas of food, and beverages (both alcoholic and non) were easy to get to without much waiting. there was also a pretty sizable staff of people who were constantly walking around cleaning up, changing out trash bags, etc. so the place was well-maintained, which is impressive given how much trash ravers simply throw on the ground. for those who've been to starscape, it reminded me of that, only much bigger, which you’d expect given the probable budget and the djs attending WMC.
on friday, all we were really interested in hearing was “carl cox and friends” (josh wink, richie hawtin, danny tenaglia) spinning 10 years of the classics. the carl cox and friends area was a HUGE tented area that thankfully had platforms in the back where i was able to sit down and see everything and chair dance. :) we missed wink, which was disappointing, but richie was spinning when we got there. there was some great music and some so-so music from him. the best was toward the end of his set, when he broke out spastik from recycled plastik. that was awesome. i wasn't as impressed with danny tenaglia's set as i wanted to to be. i had never heard him spin before, so i was excited to hear him. there were a few too many vocals for my taste. the underlying music i thought was good, but there was too much singing. maybe that was due it being a classics set? don't know. in any event, carl cox closed the night and his set was amazing as usual. he went OFF! i was bummed i couldn't dance, but i was so happy that jonathan made me get on the plane to go down. the party ended at midnight, so i hobbled my way back to the car and we headed back to the hotel for sleep (and more alleve).
i managed to lie pretty flat friday night, so saturday was better. i stayed on the round-the-clock regimen of alleve and did a lot of slow, careful stretching throughout the day to keep me moving and to ease up the back spasms. i was able to walk better and by myself (didn't need to grasp jonathan all the time) and could stand up more straight, although not all the way. i'm still not standing up straight and it's monday afternoon. anyway....
saturday, we had lunch at the grill by the pool of our hotel overlooking the beach. it was a sunny 75 or so - just perfect. around 2:00 or so, we headed downtown for day two of the party. this was the big day where there were lots of DJs we wanted to hear. the whole day was just amazing. we heard some pretty great music. the sets that stick out in my mind are:
*donald glaude and dj dan spining a 2 x 4 set - it was fun, light-hearted in a way, and you could tell that dj dan and donald glaude were having a blast up there.
*uberzone playing a live set - always cool to see and he had some funky sounds to go with the breaks
*evol intent - had never heard them before, but they laid down some sick dnb
*david guetta (who i've never heard of before)
*carl cox - again
i don't know that much about techno and i certainly wouldn't know what's current, but it was clear to me that the set carl cox spun friday night (the classics night) was much different than the set he threw down saturday. i can't articulate different like how, but it was definitely different. that was kind of cool to experience.
david guetta spun in the carl cox area. we only caught a track or two, but what we heard sounded good enough that we went to look on the set list and see who it was. i’ve never even heard of him, so i’ll have to check him out.
other notes:
i found it interesting that sasha and digweed were not on the main stage. there was a time when they were the headliners, but at this event, they were on one of the other four stages. that being said, they still had an enormous crowd of people that certainly would have filled nation. (karen and others - nation was the big club in DC where we used to go hear electronic music. it's been bulldozed for the new baseball stadium.) the main stage, which had trance djs, had the largest crowd i've ever seen at something like this. there must have been 4000+ people listening to the djs on the main stage. seriously. every time jonathan and i went to the top of one hill where we could see the whole area, we were amazed. i wish i had taken a picture in the daytime. i've never seen anything like it.
the mc's in the dnb area pretty much ruined the dnb for us. the mc's went non-stop, sometimes two at the same time, and were so loud that we couldn't hear the music very well. we were really looking forward to hearing what's current in dnb and that just didn't happen. we ended up skipping a lot of the dnb djs we wanted to hear b/c of it. we'd swing by, check it out for a couple of tracks and then give up and move on to a different area of music. it's kind of sad really. we talked about it a lot at dinner last night. the number of people in the dnb area seemed small to us. we've seen larger crowds listening to dnb in smaller venues, so we know there are people who like the music. we're wondering if the constant mc'ing of the mc's drives away people who want to hear the music. and we suspect it definitely drives away people who don't know much about dnb or haven't really heard it before if they come by to check it out. it's just so sad. the music is typically very well produced, so if you like a fast break beat with good basslines, you can't go wrong. (unless of course someone is yelling over the music telling you to put your hands in the air and show some love for dj fill in the blank.) it was frustrating and a bit of a let-down.
the crowd was so diverse and interesting. i have always loved the spectacle of a rave/party/whatever you want to call it. we saw a pretty large contingent of people who looked just like us and were in our age group or older, which was cool. there was still a candy raver contingent, which is to be expected. then there was this other group of people that i've never seen before. i have no idea what they're called. i'm sure there's a name for their style - there'd have to be b/c it's definitely distinctive. i called them yarnheads simply b/c it was descriptive enough that jonathan knew who i was talking about. they literally had yarn and other kinds of things tied throughout their hair. think weave or hair extensions - made out of yarn, curling ribbon you'd put on a present, etc. seriously. have you seen this before? i tried to take a picture with my phone, but it didn’t come out all that great.
this second picture isn't of yarnheads, it's just a group of people who everyone seemed fascinated with.
and what’s with the furry legwarmers? when did this become a trend? they were everywhere! where do you find these things? at the local mall?
i was also surprised at the number of girls wearing tights underneath everything - dresses, underwear, bikini bottoms, shorts, you name it. and the tights came in all different colors and with varying hole sizes (some fishnets and some in other holy patterns i’ve never seen before). i thought this went out in the 80s, but i guess it's just another example of history repeating itself. :)
all in all, we had a blast. we’re really glad we went down for the long weekend. we’d definitely go again - maybe for longer so we can check out more parties and get more beach time.