Miami 2 Ibiza (Sander van Doorn Remix) - Swedish House Mafia vs. Tinie Tempah (Removed)
Techy techy techy.
Mixtape (Umek Remix) - Sebastien Leger
Tech House, which is odd for him since he usually just makes straight Tech. If you're confused between the difference between Tech House and Techno, compare this to his other tracks.
+500 Bastille Love and Admiration points for whoever can name the above obscure video game character. It's a tough one, but I know you're up for it. Let's do some House music, shall we?
I feel like I either defeat EDC, or am defeated by it. This year was probably the latter. Not that it wasn't awesome, just damn was it a night. Here's our review for the 2010 Electric Daisy Carnival.
-M
BEST
Wolfgang Gartner
I mean, he's the second fucking coming of christ. And he played Yin. Also heard what most certainly were unreleased tracks that sounded sick as fuck. Man's really the best.
This will be the 4th time I've seen this dude. Hopefully you've all already had the pleasure as well. His stage presence is always top notch. But if that's not enough, check out the first 3 songs in his setlist:
J liked his set more than Boys Noize, and it was definitely a competitor. Boys Noize had the advantage of bigger stage, better lights, headlining slot, and well, just being Boys Noize. That said, Felix managed to get his daytime crowd jumping, and was dropping some awesome fucking tracks. He also just looked dope on stage. He's come a long way since I first saw him for free at Vassar.
Caught the end of his set before Boys Noize. Good stuff, not as stand out as the above stuff, but definitely enjoyable. Some songs were too minimal and just got boring and you could see it in the crowd, but he's redeem himself with the next song. He played this Hardwell bootleg that I'm not too crazy about, but I love the song underneath it:
I'm sure he would have been in the best list, but we couldn't get onto the floor for the main stage. We saw the end of his set from the stands where the sound was really shitty. Then he dropped some Dubstep and Drum & Bass. Hearing that at the Main Stage at EDC was nice.
Groove Armada
We didn't catch much of their set either, but it sounded dope. We were just pretty tired then and their stuff was sort of trancier than we needed to get us hyped. But I'll put em here.
WORST
Duck Sauce
This was such a disappointment to me. When we got there, it just wasn't going over well. I heard them drop one of their originals called Grand Steppin which is like the homage to Daft Punk's Homework, and the crowd was not having it really. Don't get me wrong, I fucking love it, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear at a rave. As we were leaving to catch Fedde, they dropped a dope House track, so maybe it was just the tiny amount of time we were there, but we weren't willing to wait around for it to get better.
Since when is playing a pop song, stopping it to say things, and then playing another pop song considered DJing? We only saw him because we wanted to get into the main stage to see Laidback Luke, but it was impossible. Hearing songs like Thriller mixed in is awesome, but when you're just playing these types of songs to be a crowd pleaser, you're a bitch, especially when you're not even mixing them. Fuck you, Will.I.Am, I got a feeling you should stick to the studio.
So due to the awesome mixes from the locals from last posts (or just click HERE), I felt inspired once again to make a mix. This one's gone tribal. Super Housey, super dancey, little bit a Dutch sprinkled in. But the theme is definitely super smooth transitions. Hope you enjoy:
So I'm back in business. I've got a brand new macbook with my old hard drive inside. I hope this doesn't slow down the posts from the others, but I have a pretty solid feeling that it will. Anyways, its good to be back.
The Swedes are really on top of House music. I haven't really been following blogs recently, but I feel like that's still a safe assumption to make. None of these tracks are new, but they are all perfect for your rave crowd. Oh, and Dirty South counts as Swedish, so does Laidback Luke sometimes. And all of these tracks are big Golden Bananas.
Gypsy (Laidback Luke Remix) - Steve Angello
Still one of my favorite rave moment of all time was seeing Laidback Luke drop this one before I listened to House music (we mostly went to see Steve Aoki, I'm sure you can see how we've changed our ways).
Somebody requested a best drops post, so in order to prepare for M's post on that, I decided to do a best buildups post. You gotta remember that a lot of the best drops also have best buildups, so I tried not to overlap. I realize this list doesn't include everything, but it really would be hard to think of all of those. These are some that came to mind in no particular order, these are also in no way new.
So it's like, damn that girl's fine, and I wanna dance with her but I like needs somethin to gets it started. I gots to put on those phat beats you know what i'm s ayin. It's like sometimes you walkin into the room and turnin heads just ain't enough, you gotta make everybdy start feelin it. Just like carry a cd with some of these beats on you at all times to throw shit down.
-J
Wake up by Les Petits Pilous, The buildup in song is epic as hell, but for some reason I was never satisfied with the drop, but I still like the song.
Zdaright by Digitalism I would put magnets and their remix of technologic in the same boat.
Don't Think About Me (Miles Dyson Remix) by Lazy Rich, This song is all about the second buildup. Me and my boy tony were sitting in his room and we heard this and just were like damn this shit's hot. This gets it started.
I'm sorry for posting our own shit, but 1. as we really were very influenced by the soulwax remix above and 2. I'm very proud of this buildup, in fact it's basically the whole purpose of the song.
So last Saturday was the ever so anticipated Love Festival. The lineup was nothing like EDC of course, as this event is MUCH smaller, but it was still big and exciting enough to get us excited as hell. It was also great to have this a week after the train wreck that was HARD Summer (read about that fuck up HERE). I'm going to do this review in the order that we saw the DJs. I will say this though, it was a night of bootlegs. I heard every DJ play some bootlegs, which I guess is ok but it's not really impressive since they're really not doing anything.
D.O.N.S. was playing when we arrived much to our delight. He was one of the people we were most excited to see, and we showed up in time to see the majority of his set. He played mostly Tech House with some Prog and a little Electro thrown in. This was J's favorite set of the night. Not much else to say except that he did a pretty good job. I will say though that his stage presence is lacking, partly do to just his appearance (I mean look at the guy, it's pretty hard to take him seriously). That said, he definitely got me dancing and jumping a few times. The highlight was when he played this bootleg: We Are Kidsos (ImanoS Bootleg) - Dirty South vs. Sebastian Ingrosso
You can also cop some of his tracks HERE and HERE.
After D.O.N.S. was finished, we decided to go check out the other stage to see what was up, and Julius Papp was playing. I know nothing about this dude, but his set was pretty cool. More relaxed, cool house stuff. I would have preferred somebody like Mark Farina, but he was definitely cool. Check out this video to get more of an idea.
We headed back up to the main stage and caught the last 30 minutes or so of Cedric Gervais. This dude fucked up a few times, and people noticed. It was pretty funny. He also looked like a complete tool on stage. I was just waiting for the next act to come on, really, but he did play this awesome bootleg:
Finally, Sharam came up and gave us the most epic intro ever by playing some fucking Ennio Morricone. Brilliant. This was my favorite set of the night for sure. He just dropped bomb after bomb of awesome Techno and Tech House. I was actually expecting a Prog House set, but I was very pleasantly surprised. He also had a live vocalist come and sing, which was really great. Here are some tracks:
Grab his album HERE (torrent, I'll try to upload it via mediafire eventually)
And here are some videos:
Not from the actual event, but I needed to find a video showing his intro
Next up was Steve Angello, the man we were most excited to see. I mean, he's in the goddam Swedish House Mafia. His set was great by all means, but it wasn't the best. He did remind me, however, how great Swedish House can be for raves (we've been very distracted with Dutch House for the past month or so). However, as J pointed out to me, he basically just played a really safe set of hits, which was a little disappointing. He was also big on the bootlegs, playing that same Yin For The Kill as well as some others, like:
We left before he was done because we were exhausted and really wanted to go home. Overall, great night, great sets, really fun event actually. It was a lot smaller than EDC which made it so much more manageable.
Felguk is an absolutely incredible Electro House duo from Brazil. If you enjoy Electro House, you MUST grab these tracks. While they have some very hard hitting tracks, some are just plain beautiful and melodic while still staying dancey as fuck. It's almost like a more playful Deadmau5 with some clear German electro influence (I mean, they even collaborated with the infamous Spencer & Hill). Been meaning to do this post for a long time, but I just have so many tracks of theirs that I've been dreading the upload, but it's finally time to put em out there. Enjoy: Oh yeah, and all tracks are 320, with the exception of ONE of the tracks in the collection at the bottom, which is actually 319...
Side By Side (Original Mix) - Felguk This track just kills too. So beautiful and yet so hard hitting at the same time. It's kind of like a mix between Progressive and Electro. Let's call it Electrogressive! Harder Better Faster Stronger (Felguk Remix) - Daft Punk Tired of playing the original, or perhaps the Deadmau5 remix? This is a FANTASTIC substitute. Will make your crowd go nuts for sure. Guess What (Original Mix) - Felguk Wow. There isn't much Electro House out there that sounds like this. Truly Unique. This track in particular is like a Progressive version of Fidget House, only way I can really describe it.
And, for those of you who are particularly enjoying what you're hearing, you can grab my entire Felguk collection below (24 Tracks, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED).
I do love that song Colt 45, but Afroman's got nothing on Afrojack. Our next feature is a minimal/tech house producer from Holland that's doing extremely well for himself right now, even landing himself a collaboration with Diplo on one of the tracks for the new Major Lazer album, as well as remixing the likes of Laidback Luke, Steve Angello, and Spencer & Hill. He makes the kind of house music that pleases both the dance and hip-hop crowd, similar to Sidney Samson and Chuckie. Really ravey stuff. This is a MUST HAVE for people who like to make acapella mashups, but still highly recommened for the house heads. Favorites up top with collection at bottom:
-M Don't Be - Afrojack I really really really love this one. Very short and simple but just works so well.
Pod De Floor' feat. VYBZ Kartel - Major Lazer This is the same track as How I Like It - Diplo & Afrojack with different vocals. Personally, I think it was better with the original vocals, but I can only find a rip of it, whereas this Major Lazer track is a legit track.
I'm gonna get myself a new internal HD soon, so I can stop worrying about space. Such a bitch. As I write this, I have 220.7 MB left on my computer. I've put a hold on all blog reading until then, so I've gotten quite behind.
EDIT J'S Additions: A few things M Missed which I love and had laying around in my itunes:
Chris Lake is an incredible House DJ/producer from London town that is affiliated with the Mau5trap family. Now, anybody that keeps company / collaborates with guys like Deadmau5, Sébastien Léger, and Dirty South is clearly of interest. His production style varies through pretty much all of the sub genres of House, so there's definitely something for all of you, and I definitely like it when producers can vary up their style without sacrificing quality. I've even seen videos of him dropping Minimal tracks live, but it seems like tons of DJs tend to go more minimal when playing live. Definitely one of the more promising producers in the game right now, and I don't see any signs of him slowing. I'm gonna shamelessly adopt J's style of posting some favorite and then link to my collection at the bottom:
-M
Buttons (Chris Lake Remix) - Sia I actually just got this track fairly recently and fell in love with it. The second buildup is beautiful. So amazing. The track's got an Electro bass with Housey piano chords and even some Tech House sounds.
Word - Sébastien Léger & Chris Lake Man this track kicks ass. Great mix of Tech House with that awesome funky guitar sample. You can really hear the styles of both producers in this.
Robots (Original Mix) - Chris Lake This is an example of Chris Lake creating an Electro House bomb. This even got popularity on a few Electro blogs.
We're gonna do a little Mau5trap theme for the time being and provide you with some tracks by Sydney Blu, otherwise known as Deadmau5' girlfriend. However, she ain't no Yoko, as she actually can make a track and apparently spins a damn good set. Is she the best producer? Well, she barely has any original material at the moment, and she may have gotten a little help from behind the scenes, but all that means is another Deadmau5 track, and that's always a plus. Besides, how many female House DJs are there, especially ones that play awesome electro house rather than just sing the same shit on the next David Guetta track?
Senses And The Mind (Olivier Giacomotto Remix) - Sydney Blu Much better constructed and DJ friendly. Ideally for a rave crowd, pretty Minimal but still Electro House. Second best track in this post. *Change name in song from Oliver to Olivier
BONUS: Body Crash (Global Deejays Remix) - Buy Now Best remix of this song out there without a question. You WILL love this. Still looking for the original if anyone happens to have it.
On the plane ride home for summer, I was DJing on my laptop while my friend listened through a splitter. As I noticed he was falling asleep, so I figured I'd lay off the electro bangers and switch to some more progressive (I wish I had another word for this genre, I really do. What the hell does Progressive mean in terms of music anyways? They should call it Trancey House or something, because thats all it is) stuff to keep from torturing the poor guy. This reminded me how awesome some of these tracks really are. They really could only be played live at a massive rave, but that doesn't keep them from being some of the most beautiful dance tracks out there. I don't care if anybody thinks that these are 'commercial' or 'gay' because a good tracks deserve credit. Here are some progressive tracks old and new.
Dreams - Deep Dish & Axwell This is a remix/cover of Fleetwood Mac that they actaully got Stevie Nicks to sing the vocals on (aka its not sampled). They say that Deep Dish invented Progressive House, who would have guessed that one of the members would become Dubfire and start making the most awesome minimal house/techno tracks around. This track was originally by Deep Dish, but I guess they decided to redo it with Axwell's help, and good thing too.
I Remember - Deadmau5 One of the highlights of Random Album Title, her voice just entrances you.
But that doesn't keep him from producing great electro house. Hell, it's not like looks kept Trentemøller from doing his thing, right? Jean Elan, hailing from the ever so popular Germany, at least as this blog is concerned at the moment, is another fantastic producer that was introduced to me by Swehouse. If I had to group him, I'd say that he'd fit in best with fellow countrymen Klaas and Spencer & Hill.
Where's Your Head At (Klaas Remix) - Jean Elan I guess Jean Elan tried to make a remix of Basement Jaxx and from what I've read he failed. Klaas comes in to save the day, sticking the track through his Klaas machine to make another song that sames the sound as all his others, yet you love the sound so much that you don't care that much.
Can't Sleep (Marcus Schossow pres. 1985 Club Mix) - Adrian Lux So pretty, reminds of Fred Falke. Cheers to Swehouse. In fact, general cheers to Swehouse since I'm pretty sure there are more tracks in this post that I got form them. They fucking rule. Everyone should check that shit daily.
The one artist who I was really surprised to not see playing at Ultra music festival (though he did play on thursday night at some club, which I learned too late) is Laidback Luke. Having never been a huge fan of house until very recently, Laidback Luke always seemed to get through to me. Laidback for quite a few of his productions takes a very similar (if not the exact same) sound as we hear in Robin S.' s Show me Love, hence the mashup of Show me Love and Be.
As this is a new blog I'm going to post a few new things I just recently found as well as some oldies which really effected me when I first found them.
*NOTE ALL LINKS REMOVED
I'm pretty sure this is a really old song, but I never had it: Housetrap by Laidback Luke
The Great Fashionista Swindle (Laidback Luke mix) by Dada Life (I think Laidback and Dada life are friends)
Last Dance (Laidback Luke remix) by Laidback Luke (it might not be this artist)
Hey! by Laidback Luke and Diplo
Show (original mix) by Laidback Luke and Tom Stephan Feat. Romanthony
Need Your Lovin (Laidback Luke Bootleg) by Korgis
Zombie Nation (Laidback Luke remix) by Laidback Luke
Bang that Box (laidback Luke remix) by Roger Sanchez feat. Terri B
Finally (Laidback Luke bootleg) by Ce Ce Peniston
Shake it down by A trak and Laidback Luke (I used to only kinda like this song, until I heard it live at ultra)
Some old Classics:
Delirious (Laidback Luke remix) by David guetta (For Chase)
His most famous song:
Break the House down (Original mix) by Laidback Luke
I want you (Laidback Luke remix) by Martin Solveig
Be by Steve Angello and Laidback Luke
Rocking With the best by Laidback Luke
And here's a video of his remix of Teachers by Daft Punk
This is a long post, bare with me. It's 5 in the morning and I'm exhausted, but at this point since I'm getting up at 9, there is no point going to sleep so here is a review of Ultra (go to the site to see the lineup. Don't be fooled, the order they are in does not mean the lateness of when they played).
A simple way to describe Ultra would be: interesting. It's not as flashy and glamorous as LA raves (though of course you had your fair share of ravers with candy and all that) and you didn't have people coming up to your all the time trying to sell you pills or some other drug. While Ultra didn't have the same friedliness that you can see at LA raves, it also had less assholes just trying to fuck with you for fun or looking at you strangely. Ultra attracted a much larger crowd which really extended beyond ravers. The festival itself sort of smelled of a combination of sweat, greasy food, weed, tobacco and god knows what else. The large amount of wind, especially friday, made sure that we would smell all that. I will say that I never set foot in the Carl Cox and friends tent (though I did want to see some people in there) mostly cause of time issues and never went to the smaller stages. The heat was horrible but not unbearable as shade could be found. We ended up taking more breaks then I would have liked and for longer then I would have wanted but that's not a big deal. The key for me I've realized is to rarely takes breaks, cause once I start a break I don't want to stop, and I just get so much more energy at the stages (for example, was extremely tired saturday when we first got there, got to the stage where LA riots was playing, and immediately my energy was back).
NOTE: The videos obviously aren't great quality, it's more about listening to the audio as best as you can and listening to what he's doing.
Here are the ratings of where I would place the acts:
Swedish House Mafia: I saw their set in parts because they ended up having a two hour set (I don't know what happened to Tiga) and there were other things I wanted to see at the same time (Para One and Surkin). The beginning of their set was mediocre, nothing special to be honest. I was more impressed with Josh Wink. I went to go see Para One, came back to Swedish House Mafia maybe about an hour into their set. What a show. I mean they went from some remix of thriller (might have been louis La Roche's), into the buildup of Be, which then dropped into satisfaction, back into the buildup of be (but it worked), to drop into the laidback luke thing where he takes Show Me Love (I was dissapointed I wanted to hear Be) and calls it a rework when it's just him mashing it up with Be (Rynecologist did it first let's be honest, but as Be is Laidback's song, who cares), then into some remix of technologic, might have played soulwax Kids but I can't remember fully. They played some other stuff afterwards including let it go and open your heart, but I really couldn't name the rest. The thing that Swedish House Mafia really had, aside from the best stage in my opinion for Friday (they were in a tent which really made everything better, aside from the heat which actually got worse), were these extremely epic buildups. I won't describe what they were doing here, but what really seperated them from other Djs was also the length of these buildups and how hard they all dropped, every single one. I will add though that their use of samples from other things at the end of buildups was really fantastic, and the crowd was overwhelming. My only criticism would be that the buildups they touched were all very similar, but I didn't really care that much because of how good they were. this was Be into satisfactioN:
back into Be into show me love:
I wish I was here for this part, it's respectable for djs to play one more time if it's fucking as good as they're doing it here:
Boys Noize: What a G. I mean his stage prescence is just so cool. He just seems like a really cool, calm, and collected guy; yet still nice and ready to have fun. You can tell he loves djing as much as we love seeing him, and that he's having just as much fun and probably more fun then the crowd. Let's go for some honesty: he wasn't like Swedish House Mafia or some of the other djs who will be named after, who kept the crowd going for the whole time (or at least very large portions). I'm giving Boys Noize number 1 because he was in complete control and played one of the most impressive sets I've ever heard. While most of the djs were doing stuff in the buildups that I could identify, I found myself stumped time after time with Boys Noize about how he was doing what he was doing. I say he was in complete control because there were times when people weren't dancing and weren't cheering as much, but that doesn't mean he wasn't doing amazing stuff. People like simplicity, lots of delay on buildups, a loop brought down to a miniscule segment... Boys Noize wasn't going to do that every time, though he very well could. I also applaud him for not playing as many safe songs as I felt a lot of other djs played. Some examples of un-safe songs are Popof and other minimal (I can't remember the song name, but I can tell you it wasn't motherfucking bass and that's what brings it out of the safe zone. I also say this because this stage was almost purely electro or something related to electro) and his remix of Royksopp (which is not a banger but is still amazing). I was having a blast when he played the para one remix of my head, but nobody else seemed to share as much enthusiasm about the song as I did. But when he dropped lava lava, nothing mattered anymore; everybody was going nuts. I was surprised that nobody really went nuts when he played superfresh, but I guess that's much less popular then lava lava. From what I could tell he also played a lot of new material which was really awesome (I could tell by the sounds used and the vocoder we all know so well from arcade robot being heard in some songs I didn't know, unless he was doing that live). If it wasn't new material, then it's old material that I just don't know very well (there's quite a bit). I was kinda dissapointed that he started and ended his set with the my moon my man loop and never played the song, but that's ok. He also left that Royksopp remix on for too long. Some Tracks:
An old remix by Boys Noize that I never had and just recently found. It's bad quality and you have to be patient with it as it doesn't really drop until like halfway through the song, but when it does drop it's crazy. Dudun-Dun (Boys Noize remix) by Para One
His dj set was good but at the same time you really have to wonder how much he can do with his own stuff. It was well mixed, and sometimes he would create big buildups. He played some version of ghosts and stuff which was cool which then dropped into the original. I wish he had played slip, but oh well. He's just my number 2 becuase it's Deadmau5 and I love all of his songs, and it's so fun to see him in the mask. Interestingly, he was using 2 computers; I wonder why. EDIT: I found out that he's actually doing a live show as well as djing, so now he definitely deserves this number 2 spot. Some good ones:
Cut Copy: I was feeling like shit saturday afternoon when we got there around 4. Part of me that morning really didn't want to go to the festival, but I knew I had to. We laid around in the shade for about an hour before getting up to see the end of La Riot's 20 minute set (which was good but nothing amazing). I didn't feel like dancing: I felt like sitting down and getting out of the sun. I wasn't in a bad mood, but I wasn't super happy either. Cut Copy really helped me out. It really lifted my spirit and made me really happy, and that happiness gave me energy for the rest of the day. That's really quite an accomplishment. Gotta love it when they played that knightlife remix of so haunted and their own remix of kaiser chiefs. It was really nice to just sing along to their songs and to see actual live music in a sea of djs. Go get their albums if you don't already have em, it's worth it.
Dirty South: It's dirty down south. I can honestly say I don't remember much of his set, but god damn it blew me away. I just remember being really happy and everybody going nuts. When a set, especially a house set, is really good, it trances me out. I just kinda leave this world, start moving side to side, until the next buildup. Then I get hyped if it's a good buildup, dance more hardcore when it first drops, then back to trancing out. That's what happened with Dirty South, so I know it was good. Otherwise I would have been standing there bored. Look at that 400 in the picture, must be an old picture or sometimes before he got more famous.
I made a playlist of a long list of videos that a guy put up of dirty south:
Let's be honest, I hate the new album. But they killed it. I mean really a crazy high energy set, and even though I wasn't in the main crowd, I couldn't stop but think wow everytime something dropped. It was less about the greatness of the buildups (a lot of filters) and more about how heavy everything was which complimented the lightness of the hi pass filters. And they played a lot of their old stuff, which made me happy. They also kept the crowd at a constant state of excitement. If they were playing their new stuff, either I didn't notice it or it might mean their stuff hits much harder live (but I didn't hear vocals). I left early to go see Prodigy however. I deleted their new album off my hardrive, so for those who don't know it: The least known but really crazy MSTRKRFT song: Beautiful Fighters (MSTRKRFT remix) by Ayumi Hamasaki (she's going deaf)
Beginning of their set:
I'm sure you can all recognize the song they go into here:
5. Busy P and Josh Wink Busy P: He was great at coachella last year and he was great this year. His song choice was pretty safe in my opinion, but I still really enjoyed his set. Aside from the safe songs, he played a lot of other electro songs I liked and knew which is always nice (numanoid!). His transitions were on par and his buildups were good enough to attract a crowd and get people dancing. I mostly giving him props for not fucking things up, and his song choice was good enough to pull him the rest of the way through. When we entered the tent where he was playing, there were a good amount of people but it definitely wasn't full. By the end it was packed. Funny, while we were leaving, they put out so much fog that I couldn't see 1 foot in front of me. It's really awkward to be leaving and not be able to move because of all the smoke surrounding you and just standing there waiting for it to go away, while wondering if you should still push forward or not. Go look at a recent older post to get some Busy P: HERE
Josh Wink: The House Djs Friday really pulled through. Thank god he got a haircut, and I'm pretty sure his hair was still short on friday, cause other pictures of him are just ridiculous. He was the first guy I saw at the festival, and he got me excited for the rest of the festival. His buildups were extremely well done, most were on par with Swedish House Mafia, transitions were smooth. The only reason I put him down here is because I don't know him well enough and didn't see as much of his set as I would have liked. But he played Slip as I was leaving which made me force chase to run back in with me and if I remember correclty the Herve remix of omen. I actually don't have a single track by Josh Wink, I'll make sure to post a bunch at some point. For now be content to look at his myspace and to find tracks on hypem.
Swedish house mafia playing Josh Wink's higher state of consciousness:
Honorable mention: Surkin: Played a good set, a lot of songs I did not expect to hear at all at this festival (Momy as an example), and did some interesting things with it. But for some reason I just wasn't hugely moved. Chase thought he was terrible.
I was extremely excited to see them to say the least. I was so let down. First of all, they came on like 40 minutes late, but the main stage sucked with times like that (hence deadmau5 playing two songs on friday). They kept shouting "where are you, Miami" well where the fuck were you Prodigy. I stayed for two songs, both sucked, not many people were dancing except in the very front. We left to go get some water before Deadmau5, I wasn't going to miss a minute of deadmau5 for prodigy. I listened from afar to their set, and really it didn't improve. They must have had two to three songs left (because of how late they came on, and they would never shorten Paul Van Dyke's set) by the time we got up to go see deadmau5, and none of the ones I wanted to hear had come on (omen, invaders must die, warriors dance) They played world's on fire, but something must have been wrong with their mids because all I heard were drums and the guy shouting. No idea where the synths were. The actual song is good, but live it just wasn't. However, I will say that a lot of people really though that the prodigy did a great job. Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe I don't know enough of their stuff, but I just didn't enjoy it. It might also have been cause I was pretty pissed that they came on so late because I wanted to see a good portion of their set before seeing deadmau5.
I only stayed for 20 minutes of his set before going back to Swedish House Mafia, and thank god I went back. Those 20 minutes were boring and even annoying. He kept teasing us with midnight swim, but didn't play it. EVERY SONG SOUNDED THE SAME. I don't know if it's because he kept using this sampled scratchy sound, but it sucked to hear it every song. And he kept using this sample of an open hi hat over all of his stuff. His bass was just too high as well. Could barely distinguish the song. But that was partially because I was in the front row and there were huge subwoofers on the floor in front of me. However, even when I moved back it still didn't sound good. I made motions to try and help him, but he didn't see me. Oh well.
I love Benny Benassi's new album Rock 'N' Rave. Too bad in the 40 minutes out of the hour he was playing, he did not play a single song from it or a single song from his first one. Benassi actually ended up playing a lot of electro, which is usually fine with me, but not in this case. I was just bored. He played a lot of songs I liked... But did he do anything? I'm not sure. I feel like an ipod would have worked well in his place, maybe a dj with the IDJ. Let's just say, there was a huge crowd for Swedish House Mafia, and they all left when Benassi came on. I also spent half the time wondering who was on stage and where the fuck Busy P was because he was supposed to go on before Benassi. Also from afar Benassi kinda looked one of the guys from swedish house, but I think that's because I think he was right next to them the whole time they played.
Mediocre:
4. The Bloody Beetroots Very mixed bag with Bloody Beetroots. And I gotta say, I think I was most excited to see them. Certain points were great, others not so much. I saw them twice, an hour set on friday and a 20 minute set on saturday. They had some good buildups, and I really liked their stage prescence as they're really into it, shouting and stuff. For most of their set on friday, I wasn't dancing much and neither were a lot of people around me. But by the end it picked up and it was really fun. Saturday's set was better, I mean they played positif. It's hard to say exactly why saturday was better, but it definitely was. But my conclusion about the bloody beetroots is that they are lazy. Though I liked saturday's set better, it made me realize how lazy they really are. They played warp three times: once on friday, and twice on saturday (once in the beginning and once in the end. The song does sound better live). More then half the songs they played saturday they had already played on friday. On friday they went from warp to cornelius. Guess what, they did it the exact same way saturday or at least in a very similar way. Where was all the Bloody beetroots I wanted to hear? Mac Mac, Butter, I love the bloody beetroots, 72 virgins remix, summer of 98...anything... I was so pumped to hear miscommunication, but saddened quite a bit when it turned out to be dimmakmmunication. They also played a really safe set, Kids (soulwax remix), wake up, diplo remix of bart bmore, raven (crookers remix) which is less safe then the original but I heard that song too many times, One More Time (the safest song of all time)...There was more but I can't remember right now. It was cool though when they played baggy bottom boys. It wasn't cool when they cut out the second half of the second buildup. However, some of the stuff which sounded like them that I didn't know and could be on the new album, sounded pretty cool. So we'll see.
Horrible video, but all I've found for now:
Most overplayed songs: 1. Kids (Soulwax Remix) by MGMT, please make it stop. It's great, it's not amazing, and the original has been overplayed. I must have heard it at least 7 times, twice at the house stage...
2. Raven by Proxy, I thought the hype about this song was over, I guess I was wrong. Even when the crookers remix was played I was just tired of it.
All the DJs had quite a few safe songs in their sets, maybe because Ultra is a huge festival, and like at a college party, people love hearing what they know, and DJs wanted to make a good impression. No matter how many times people heard that fucking kids remix, they always went nuts.
Acts I really wanted to see but didn't get to: Crystal Castles (heard they sucked from some EDIT: According to some commenter they were great) Fedde Le Grande Moby More of LA Riots Pete Tong Carl Cox Rabbit in the moon SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO: Tony and Devra were so fed up with dance music by 11 pm on saturday that they had no intention of staying to see simian. Me, most importantly without any cash, and really not in the mood to stay there alone (though if I had money I probably would have), had to leave too. :( Booka Shade (Really wanted to see, but it just didn't end up happening) Evol Intent Infected Mushrooms Kaskade
Some things I noticed about the djs:
I heard very few to no mashups.
A lot of filters out of songs.
Quick cuts from right before where a buildup would be in the song to the buildup in a new song For the loops which became smaller and smaller and smaller i'm pretty sure they were using the pioneer mixer and not the cdjs.
Fuck computers, the best djs didn't have em.
They cut in parts of really popular songs that everybody knew, but didn't actually play the song. In deadmau5's case, he cut in parts of harder better faster stronger and he did it in a really cool way, but he didn't play the song or his remix of the song, and people were dissapointed when it dropped back into hi friend for the third time (he played the version without the vocals the first time, and after the first buildup, dropped into the version with the vocals). I'm not so down with that.
Overall I'm not complaining. I really enjoyed seeing all those djs. However, I think next time I go to a festival (whether its a massive in LA or something else) I'm going to try and see more house music then electro acts, unless I really want to see that electro act.
