ULTRA MUSIC FESTIVAL 2011

Miami’s Ultra Music Festival is not exactly a model citizen in the world of music festivals.  It’s no Burning Man, no Woodstock, not even a post-Kanye Bonnaroo. There’s no overt mission of sustainability or charity aside from the rather half-assed “Eco Village” shoved behind the Heineken Dome in the back corner of the park. The food options are narrow, unhealthy, and wildly overpriced ($15 for a sub-par plate of chicken fingers and a handful of undercooked fries? Yikes).  The bathrooms are few and far between (waits reportedly lasted up to half an hour). There’s no source of free water, which is a huge no-no in my book (water = survival when it comes to spending all day dancing in the hot sun, and forcing parched, Molly-driven ravers to pay $5 cash for every puny bottle is downright lethal). There wasn’t even a recycling facility (come on).

Bienvenidos a Miami.

Then there were the unexpected and unintentional issues: a massive and very poorly timed fuel fire at the Miami airport that canceled nearly 200 flights; scheduling conflicts with the Winter Music Conference, Swedish House Mafia’s “Masquerade Motel” show, and Chromeo’s performance at the Juno Awards; Bicentennial Park construction that forced organizers to make do with a venue size 30% smaller than last year’s…

And yet, wow. UMF 2011 triumphed.

At a time when many festivals focus on drawing in the maximum number of people with the widest variety of musical offerings—the “something for everybody” approach—Miami’s Ultra Music Festival seems to have known exactly what it wanted to be since its nativity on the shores of South Beach thirteen years ago.  Despite or rather because of its complete unwillingness to compromise on this very particularized vision, Ultra seems to have achieved self-actualization in a way that few other festivals have in this day and age.  The result? A three-day, sold-out wonderland of bass-laden, booty-shaking, face-melting EDM that showcased the very best of an industry in its prime.  With a line-up ranging from hot-off-the-press buzz-makers (Afrobeta, Beardyman, Trentmoller) to legendary standbys (Chemical Brothers, Carl Cox, Underworld), Ultra ran the gamut without ever veering too far from its molten core.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Ultra Music Festival is not for everybody.  But it is for anybody who loves electronic music enough to be blasted with it for three solid days without reprieve. And therein lies the beauty of the whole affair. 

FRIDAY:

We arrived to find the party in full swing, with what would soon prove to be a permanent sea of speedy die-hards blanketed across the mouth of the Main Stage and shaking their fists along with the endless pulsations of Benny Benassi, who seemed to take his midday placement as a chance to chill out, and was even spotted texting onstage during his own set.  Not that it mattered; crowds were way too amped-up to notice, and it’s unlikely that anyone who noticed would have cared anyway.

After checking out the scene a bit, we skipped over to the Live Stage, Ultra’s second biggest and best situated arena, where Norwegian downbeat duo Röyksopp was spinning some seriously spellbinding ambience that kept everybody moving.

Next up, an entirely unexpected and seriously danceable dubstep-derived nosh-up from classically trained house mastermind BT (a.k.a. Brian Transeau).  It was exactly what I’d been looking for all evening, with my energy level still sky-high and booty aching to swivel and swim.  BT would be playing a second set on the Main Stage on Sunday afternoon, but unfortunately it was scheduled for 1:30 p.m., hence I already knew I wouldn’t be making it unless I happened to wake up there.  Regardless, despite the small stage size of his Friday set, it was clear that this British club favorite and all-star producer knows how to deliver exactly what the people want, exactly how and when we want it.

Rave-style hypnosis.

We were riding high until we headed back to the Main Stage, which was all but deserted thanks to the Duran Duran buzz kill that was happening on it.  This is not to say that Duran Duran is not worthy of a listen, or that they shouldn’t be applauded for making a comeback, or that their rendition of “Notorious” didn’t put a smile on my face, it’s just that they didn’t fit in with the otherwise airtight line-up that Ultra created, and it was too early in the weekend for people to be ready for a break from the pulsing electro we had come to experience.

Then, right when we began to wonder if live sets were a no-go at Ultra, here came Pendulum, with epileptic, industrial noise layered under live drums and vocals alongside skin-crawling big-screen visuals that brought the energy and the crowds bouncing back to Main Stage. 

When Pendulum got overwhelming, it was over to STS9 for some downtempo electrojams and a rare break in the pulsing base. But you can only sit for so long at a place like this, so we ran over to Tiesto, god of trance, who’d come all the way from the Netherlands to hypnotize 50,000 of us into a state of pure euphoria.  Now that’s a great way to kick off a weekend.

EMTs can party too.

SATURDAY:

We rambled back over to the festival grounds just in time to catch Dutch dance DJ Afrojack, who has been drawing quite a bit of buzz lately for his ability to take crowd-pleasing pop songs and amp up their danceability factor by about a thousand.  When we arrived, he was doing just that to an already thoroughly sweaty crowd at the Main Stage.  Even the EMTs constantly roving the crowd picking up ravers who raved too hard were partying on their EMT mobiles.  We immediately joined in. 

Suddenly, we looked up to see a plane tracing out billowy white smoke letters across the cloudless blue sky: L... A… D… Y… It was like that scene in Matilda where the whole classroom of kids is reading out Magnus’ chalkboard message to Miss Trunchbull from beyond the grave (right? Anyone?  Never mind).  G… A… G… A… Suddenly you could feel the communal energy shift, everyone staring at the sky, cameras pointed, breath bated.  This was by no means a crowd of teenyboppers or Lady G diehards, but the woman’s a superstar, and a surprise appearance, we all agreed, would be epic, indeed. But no.  It was just a promotion for B…O…R… oh.  Born This Way. S a bag of D’s, Gaga.  The only way I’ll be obtaining your newest album is by pirating it.

Next, on the Live Stage, Simian Mobile Disco duo James and James (Ford and Shaw, respectively), clad in simple all-black ensembles, fully embodied their own indie-tech duality by producing a hip-shaking lesson in sleek and shiny minimalism via clunky analog DJ equipment that looked like something David Cronenberg might’ve dreamed up in 1983.  Hipsters and ravers: two birds, one stone.

As late afternoon seeped into early evening, my crew and I formed something of a disco train that bumped and grinded through seas of sweaty, smiling, dayglow-swathed revelers before pausing in the central dustbowl to rock out to San Fran house master Kaskade.  Kaskade’s always-awesome assortment of expertly-fused party tracks includes everything from classic dance riffs to spanking new samples from dub’s newest it-kid, Skrillex, whose own performance was regrettably missed by me.

From there, it was over to the multi-level Carl Cox & Friends arena, a brand new addition to UMF and “the largest enclosed sound structure ever featured in Florida.”  Here, spinning his heart out, was one of the most controversial figures in techno—although you definitely wouldn’t know it by the looks of him.  Quintessentially bald and bespectacled, this would be Moby, the guy who made electronic music mainstream in the early 90s, and who continues—as he proved on Saturday—to stay at the zenith of the game, churning out electric dance magic as vigorous as it was dynamic, as classic as it was fresh.

Bright like neon love.

 Then, it was time to head back over to the Live Stage, where two of the acts I was most looking forward to were scheduled back to back: Cut Copy and Empire of the Sun.  Unlike distant cousins Simian Mobile Disco, Cut Copy occupies an entirely different section of the indie-electro soup.  Actually, picture that soup as one of those kinds you can get in Asian restaurants that’s shaped like a yin yang, and think of Cut Copy as the yang to SMD’s yin.  Whereas SMD surfaced as a paring down of experimental electronic rock band Simian, Cut Copy evolved out of DJ/producer/songwriter Dan Whitford solo project, to which he added bassist/guitarist Tim Hoey and drummer Mitchell Scott to fill out his synth and sample-based sound. The pre and post-addition album titles say it all: “I Thought of Numbers” transformed into “Bright Like Neon Love,” a phrase that accurately sums up the band’s performance on Saturday, despite the fact that their set list drew most heavily from their two latest albums, indie-darling “In Ghost Colours” and this year’s equally awesome follow-up, “Zonoscope.”  Regardless, the band kicked off a welcome hiatus from the rotations with some good (albeit not so old-fashioned) live music that had crowds dancing and singing madly and brightly as neon love itself.

Empire of the Sun

If Simian Mobile Disco and Cut Copy are a yin-yang shaped soup, Empire of the Sun is on another plate entirely.  And by plate I mean planet.  (I know, that was a good one.) With their experimental yet pop-minded electric revival, the Aussie duo’s music sounds much like that of American counterparts MGMT—that is, until you compare their live performances.  Completely blowing MGMT’s notoriously lackluster shows out of the water, Empire of the Sun delivers exactly what you’d expect from a band whose album art resembles a space-age theatrical poster for Labyrinth. I have no earthly idea about the plot that unfolded onstage, but the mesmerizing spectacle of glammed-out costumes, interstellar backdrops, and Cirque de Soleil-style choreography left me far too entertained to care.

Next, we raced over to Main Stage to catch the tail end of what was clearly an incredible live set by British electronica veterans Underworld.  Luckily, the duo closed out with the soaring melodies and neck-breaking beat of “Born Slippy,” the song from Trainspotting that seems to best capture the gritty glamour and brash tragedy of the 1980s Edinborough club scene depicted in the film. The fact that this was one of Underworld’s last-ever performances made the experience particularly cathartic.

Deadmau5

To conclude Day 2, last year’s top headliner and the reportedly antisocial wunderkind of today’s EDM scene: Deadmau5, a.k.a. Joel Zimmerman.  Complete with a blinged-out version of his dementedly grinning mouse head and lit-up cube—notably brilliant elements that set him apart visually from the hundreds of other skinny white guys standing at turntables—Zimmerman spun his distinct brand of dark and bouncy techno for bouncing masses rife with homemade recreations of the Mau5’s iconic head.  Heavy on the bass, heavy on the synth, heavy on the flashing lights.  

Deadmau5 has a real person face.

Zimmerman’s bromance with Tommy Lee continued as Lee and his drum kit emerged on a raised platform, and Lee’s girlfriend Sofi Toufa (as in, the one who needs a ladder) strutted around below and yelled into the microphone, alternating between what some might describe as singing and what most would describe as prattling on when all we want to hear is the music.  At the end of the show, a blizzard of confetti shot out into the crowd, the lights went white, and we all trudged back to our respective hotels, condos, and, as the case may be, all-night after-parties that kept the city throbbing ‘til the sun came back up.

SUNDAY:

Sunday was spent flitting around like moths to a series of flames (the flames being any beat we could shake to), in a dance trance that didn’t stop until the music did. It began with an electro-house stopover at Wolfgang Gartner but quickly moved into an official State of Trance.  And by this I mean that for its third and final day, UMF decided to transform the Carl Cox tent into an enchanted grotto reserved exclusively for back-to-back performances from some of the greatest trance DJs in the world. 

Fake Blood

After getting down to British progressive trancer Gareth Emery, we scooted over to Live Stage to the beat-heavy house party of another talented Brit—Theo Keating, a.k.a. Fake Blood, a personal favorite that we’d first discovered at Ultra last year.  Despite his preoccupation with another music project called The Black Ghosts with Simon William Lord, Keating’s lively beats and computerized vocal hooks remain addictive as ever. 

A State of Trance.

We danced until Steve Aoki emerged and disappointed us all by eliminating the one thing we loved about him—his delicious Lion King intro.  And he didn’t even replace it with anything cool. So, the disco train left the station, and we made our way through twisting passages, grassy knolls, and strung-out hill-dwellers back to A State of Trance, where Armin Van Buuren promptly showed us exactly what the phrase meant.  Soaring synths!  Astronomic drops! Flashing lights! Rainbow glasses! Vick’s Vapo-Rub! Heart-melting rendition of “Use Somebody” that had the entire crowd singing along with our arms in the air!  When I emerged from the tent I felt I’d lost all five senses, and I wasn’t even mad.

The only thing that could tear us out of our tranced-out state was the Crystal Castles set happening back over at Live Stage, so away we went.  As you may know, I’ve already seen (and reviewed) Crystal Castles more times than necessary, and though I love them dearly, they’re pretty much the same every time: Ethan spins and Alice screams and everybody wears a lot of black. This time, Alice had a bum leg, so she couldn’t even crowd surf.  But I still danced my pants off. 

Not Beardyman, but a man with a beard.

Next up, something truly new and different: London-based beatboxer extraordinaire, Beardyman.  This guy is pretty incredible, folks—his entire show consists of off-the-cuff beatboxing and live looping technology.  As in, every sound that comes out of his speakers is a sound that he made with his mouth while he was standing there in front of us.  You’ve got to see it to believe it—it’s a feat admirable enough to forgive the shameless self-promotion in the form of Windows ‘95-style graphics that came along with it.  Expect to see big things from this up-and-comer.

After Beardyman’s 20-minute set (apparently he was a last minute addition), it was time for MSTRKRFT, the Canadian dance duo comprised of Death from Above 1979's Jesse F. Keeler and producer Al-P. With a slew of expertly crafted remixes and rollicking beats, these guys just know how to make people move, and we love them for it.

The Chemical Brothers

MSTRKRFT provided the perfect warm-up for what was without a doubt the most epic performance of the entire weekend.  The fact that it happened to be the top headliner performing the final set of the festival just goes to show how great UMF’s organizers are at their job.  Enter the pioneers of big beat; the original unifiers of dance, rock and rap; the granddaddies of arena-sized electronica: The Chemical Brothers. Living up to every expectation and then some, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons put on the show of the century: back to back to back flawlessness, like a thousand moving parts all coming together into a perfect machine.  As mind-melting visuals flashed across the screens—a mechanical horse, a human body made of light bulbs, the most terrifying clown in the history of the world screeching, “YOU’RE MY CHILDREN NOW!”—sound and vision melded into one big bursting sensation that seemed to coat the inside and outside of every single body in the park.  Walls of blood-curdling sound seemed to reach down and scoop up the entire crowd by our earlobes, lifting us until it seemed like our ears would tear away from our skulls, and then at the last possible second dropping us back down into a featherbed of liquid beats, the kind that makes you look over at your friends and scream “OH SHIT!” into their beaming little faces.  Pure bliss.

Ultra = Bliss.

A confession: when it comes to music, I’m a hedonist.  I seek out sounds that bring me pleasure, that I can feel deep down in my belly, that radiate from my flailing limbs. This is why Ultra is so incredible to me—and also why it’s so difficult to capture it in writing.

Novelist Nick Hornby says, "I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out.  It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part."  In Ultra, we sum it up in just two words: “TOTAL FACEMELT.”

The End.

By Hilary Cadigan
Photo Credits: Hilary Cadigan, Rob Royall, Stacy Komitor