My own reflections on Saturday, which was the only day I was there
(besides a breakfast at the clique and a bit of shopping at submerge on
Sunday):
I arrived when Aux88 were playing. They were pretty good - it was nice
to see them singing/vocoding live ('it's time to drop some techo
bass!'), and they played a lot of favorites. But something sounded a
bit off, not sure what.
I missed most of Anthony Shakir. Scan 7 were awesome.. pure pure,
unrelenting techno.
Octave One were also really good, and way more animated than the last
time I saw them live (which was maybe six years ago). If anyone knows
what equipment they were using, I'd love to know.
King Britt was ok, not completely my thing, but I got the feeling he was
playing tracks that fit the 'theme', which was nice of him. Kerri
Chandler was pretty much what you'd expect and the bits I caught were
really good.
I only watched the beginning of the moodymann show, but it was pretty
underwhelming. They had a mediocre opening song, then played some
breakdown over and over again with little bits of different tracks in
between. Byt I really enjoyed hearing them cover blake baxter 'in the
garden'. I had just been listening to that a couple of days before for
the first time in years. I wouldn't be surprised if it got a lot better
later on, but unfortunately I had to leave.
R & S were pretty good. I didn't spend too much time there, but, as
others said, the sound system was great. It was a nice vibe too for
sure. The sound in the main arena was also really good. The sound in
the detroit tent sounded like sh$t sometimes, but sounded very good when
scan 7 and octave one were playing.
I also went to the soul skate. It didn't feel like it had any
connection to the festival, but it was a lot of fun and if I was there
the whole weekend would have been the perfect break. I don't know if
kdj was actually spinning anything though as the tracks were unmixed and
could've been played by anyone. They played shari vari though, that was
cool.
Jamil
