40 minutes. That's how long it took me and my husband, The Marmot, to get from our apartment on South Beach, to the Ultra Music Festival at Bicentennial Park. We eschewed driving there. The thought of fighting it out with 50,000 concert revelers made our knuckles turn white.
The pound, pound, pounding of bass was audible even as we were passing over the McArthur causeway. In the sunlight, the white sound stage tents beckoned like giant elephants. And just like that - we weren't in Miami anymore. Gone were the white linen pants, the Manolo Blahniks, the high-priced escorts, and their rich Brazillionaire sugar daddies. In their place was a teeming mass of humanity - dressed, pierced, colored, and dyed to fly their freak flags high. We saw a trio of raver goths, who looked as if they had fallen into a spring sale at Hott Topic and weren't able to climb their way out. One of them looked like a cross between Marilyn Manson and Lindsay Lohan during her 80lb coke whore stint. He teetered over everyone in his platform foam shoes, and bore the supercilious expression of a London Tory barrister. "Jesus, does that guy even have bowel movements?" I wondered out loud.
No sooner did I say that, than when The Marmot pointed at the Main Stage, and went, "WHOA!" I looked.
It was some sight to behold. Tiesto was in the midst of spinning Carpe Noctum, that ubiquitous raver's anthem - and the crowd was ALL OVER that sh1t. Picture a sea of flailing arms and vibrating bodies, all electrified by the same beats. Imagine a million voices going "AHHHH!!" simultaneously. Multiply that image a thousand times over. That's how crazy Ultra was.
Everywhere that we went, the sickest beats followed. We weren't able to catch Danny Tenaglia's set, but local talent Rabbit in the Moon more than made up for our disappointment. Frontman Bunny spun "Deeper" - a track featuring what sounded like Benedictine monks on acid - and the texture, the melody, the sheer beauty of that track made me so damned happy that my mom didn't accidentally drop me on my head when I was a kid and make me deaf. Because it is times like these that I thank the powers that be for the redemptive quality of music. Bunny continued with the 80's inspired "Come Alive," to which the kid next to me responded to by busting into The Robot.
Later on at the mash-up stage, Turkish delight, Erol Alkan wowed many by spitting out early 80's and 90's cult favorites with his signature ambient sounds and moody lounge track overlays. No pop cultural stone was left unturned, no one-hit wonder too cheesy for Erol. During his hour long set, he sampled tunes from Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson, and Rick Astley (yes, THE Rick Astley). As if we weren't already thrilled with the surfeit of pop ballads, Erol took his craft one notch higher, and went Full Tilt Indie. For 20 blissful minutes, we were treated to the his masterful mixes featuring The Scissor Sisters, Franz Ferdinand, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and LCD Soundsystem.
Two stages over, Carl Cox, the Crown Prince of Ultra's first day, was holding court with "Ain't it Funky Now?" - one of the singles off his Second Sign album. There is a very palpable difference between a dj who enjoys critical acclaim, and one who has commercial acclaim. The former is usually a nuclear-pale, rake thin character named Dieter from West Berlin, who likes chain-smoking cloves and frowning a lot. Conversely, mainstream dj's usually have lucrative record deals, date Croation supermodels, and make a living from spinning tried-and-tested, danceable pieces of crap. Carl Cox is one of the visionaries who has managed to achieve both. I heard him spin 10 years ago at The Palladium in LA. His work is just as fresh, cutting-edge, and masterful as it was when he burst on the scene during the Second Summer of Love. During the bossa-nova influenced "Space Calling," we saw the reluctant goth kids get up and DANCE. So maybe they weren't exactly hopping onboard the Love Train. No matter. Those slight, almost imperceptible foot taps told me more than I needed to know. Forget what the tabloids are saying about his new stuff. Carl Cox is here to stay, and if the energy at Ultra is any indicator of his relevance, he will be redefining the face of electronica for a very long time.
11PM rolled around, and we were famished. A cursory glance at the array of food choices confirmed our worst suspicions - that while the organizers of Ultra did a bang-up job putting the lineup together, the quality and variety of food sucked @ss. Not only were the kabobs undercooked - the vendor was selling two anemic looking sticks of chicken for $9. But all was not lost. Especially when you're a Melodytrip correspondent. One flirty smile and a shameless flash of my press pass later, I was sitting pretty in the VIP area, sipping on a vodka-cranberry and nibbling on sushi. A soft breeze blew in from the bay. I relaxed, and stretched out on my bean bag. Membership has it's privileges.