Ultra Music Festival 13

Sigh. I don’t even know where to begin.

I guess I’ll start with the good stuff. With very rare exception, every DJ and band I saw totally kicked ass. If an act was playing for 50 people or 50,000, it didn’t matter, they played like they were rock stars, and their energy was always contagious. Also, when it all came together, and 75,000-150,000 were dancing to the same beat, it was truly a sight to behold and unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of. Moments like that almost made me forget about all the problems with the festival.

Almost.

I’ll start with the layout of the venue. Simply put, it’s a fucking mess. There were EIGHT stages at Ultra this year. EIGHT. This overabundance of stages created many problems, the most notable of which was noise bleed. Many of the stages were all right next to each other. So unless you were right up on the stage, you got to hear noise from the stage(s) next to you. Also, putting the stages so close to each other created crazy traffic and gridlock problems, especially later in the evening when people were rushing to get from stage to stage to catch big name acts.

This wouldn’t have been as big a problem if the all the stages were actually needed, but they weren’t. Many times the artists at the smaller stages were literally playing to no one. What’s the point? All they were doing was creating noise that hindered other nearby performances.

Then there were the grounds themselves. Most of the ground in front of the main stage was pavement. And yeah, that’s hot and not very comfortable, but it’s not that uncommon. Meanwhile, the ground in front of the live stage was mostly grass, and that’s nice, but right in front of the stage was nothing but dirt. When people dance in dirt, they cause miniature dust storms that get in your eyes, in your hair and if you’re really unlucky, in your drink. Ugh. It doesn’t take much to sod a field a few weeks before a concert. But it obviously took more than the Ultra organizers were willing to give. A common theme.

Two of the side stages had it even worse, instead of pavement or even dirt, they had gravel. GRAVEL. Have you ever tried dancing on gravel? Here’s a protip: Don’t. It fucking hurts! The little stones repeatedly got in my shoes and cut up my feet. Even worse, sometimes some asshat would run to the stage and start thrashing about like a madman, kicking little stones up into my face. That hurts. A lot.

The gravel pit dance floors were just one example that showcased the utter contempt Ultra organizers had for the audience. The restrooms were a fucking mess, just a smattering of porta-pottys off in a (very) dark corner. Getting to them was a nightmare, and if it was after dark you couldn’t see shit. Not only is this annoying, (and kind of gross) but it’s really dangerous. If I was a woman, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to wander into this poorly lit, at times sparsely populated, area – not with all the drugged out and drunken idiots milling about. I hate to think about what horrible acts probably went down around those porta-pottys.

But the biggest “fuck you” from the concert organizers to the concert goers was the water. A half-liter bottle of water was five bucks -and there were no refill stations anywhere in the park. That meant that if you wanted to stay properly hydrated during the 12 hour outdoor concert, you were looking at plucking down 20 bucks a day for water. I don’t even understand how that’s legal. The organizers of Utlra should be ashamed of themselves.

But onus for this dance-crazed clusterfuck can’t all be placed on the organizers, the assholes in attendance have to be partially to blame as well.

Truth be told, most of the people attending this festival didn’t really give a fuck about electronic music, especially any electonic music that was more than five years old. The majority of the audience talked over acts like Underworld and Duran Duran, while legends like Goldie, Ed Rush & Optical, and Hybrid played to half-empty fields and arenas. No respect for the history of electronic music was given by the audience here. They wanted to hear Top 40 club hits and nothing else. If it didn’t have a constant beat, more often than not the DJ or band might as well fuck off in their eyes.

Even worse was the treatment Erasure got. If the audience wasn’t ignoring the synthpop legends then they were actively heckling them. I heard many yells of “you suck!” and “get off the stage!” Even worse, I heard at least one drunken fucker yell “fags!”  I nearly cried.

But even responsibility for this can be partially blamed on the concert organizers. A band like Erasure, who has a cult following at best in America, should not be playing the main stage at 7:30 at night. They should be on the live stage, playing after a group like Empire Of the Sun or Royksopp. Sticking them on the main stage, between Benny Benassi and Pendulum, was just asking for trouble. Ditto for putting Underworld before Deadmau5. The jerks there to see mouseboy didn’t know who Underworld was, and they were all too high on cocaine or E (I saw more drugs here than any other place in my entire life, by the way) to be considerate to those around them. A pair of shirtless fucktards actually laughed at me for liking “Born Slippy .NUXX.” What’s it to them if I like Underworld? I just didn’t get it.

At the end of each night of the festival I came back to my hotel dejected and depressed. Sad over the fact that what should have been a great event was nearly ruined by poor planning and greed. By the last day, I had to listen to electronic music in my hotel for an hour just to work up the energy to brave the horribleness I knew I was going to endure.

Ultra is a fuck you to music fans. So here’ my fuck you back to Ultra.

Hey Ultra organizers. Fuck you. Fuck your five dollar water. Fuck your lax security. Fuck your shitty, foot-tearing gravel. Fuck your shitty stages. Fuck your poor scheduling. Fuck your horrible fucking website. Fuck your inflated ticket prices. Fuck your eyesore VIP section. Fuck your dangerous, poorly lit bathrooms. Fuck your useless sidestages. Fuck your shitty house emcee. And fuck your overpriced shitty merch.

But most of all, fuck your greed. I have never before been to a concert so obviously motivated by the bottom line. Ultra is an event designed solely to jam 150,000 people into a confined space and suck as much money out of them as possible. The people who put on Ultra don’t fucking care if the concert goers live or die. Once you give them your money you can fuck off for all they care.

So yeah, fuck Ultra Music Festival. Unless they address these problems, there is no way in hell I am ever going back to that disco shithole.

Hybrid
Airless
Airless (DJ Stephen & Jim’s Raw Traderz Mix)
Airless (DJ Tiësto’s Magikal Remake)
Even though Ultra was kind of a disaster, I still took away a lot of great memories from the festival. For example, I got to see Hybrid perform live! Hearing “Finished Symphony” live was one of the most transcendent musical experiences of my life. I will never forget it.

These three tracks by the legendary progressive trance act are from a 12″ I got in Miami. And yeah, I know that’s not a lot of music. But did you see how much I wrote? I’m tired! I’ll have more next week I promise!