Figge, one of my closest friends, was working the show, serving as the VJ for Swedish supergroup Swedish House Mafia. Comprised of three of Sweden's biggest DJs -- Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell, and Steve Angello -- the group was playing the second night of Ultra, just before headliner Deadmau5. Roy and I were on site to provide production support for Figge. Here he is with Roy and Christian, who, asides from being SHM's manager, has also been getting a lot of calls lately for his work as the editor for Lady Gaga's Telephone music video.
Working the show means all-access wristbands.
This is the second time we've worked with Fig at a concert, the first being the Blink-182 show at MSG this past winter, and it was again an amazing experience. It's truly remarkable to see all of the behind-the-scenes work it takes for one of these events to come together, and when the crowd is as passionate as the Ultra crowd was, the whole show is that much more rewarding. But what made the show special for me was finding out that there were a handful of non-electronic acts performing, acts that I was actually excited to see.
As much fun as the electronic DJs turned to be (Armin van Buuren in particular), I was stoked to find out that Passion Pit was performing at the show. One of my favorite bands right now, Passion Pit is a tremendously catchy mix of electronic and pop. You might recognize their song Sleepyhead from the Palm Pixi commercial, or their current single Little Secrets, but for the really transcendental stuff, check out Moth's Wings or Eyes As Candles. They performed in the afternoon on Friday, and were the first act to draw a really big crowd.
They put on an excellent, if all too short, show. The guys had great energy, and when we ran into them earlier in the day, they seemed genuinely surprised and pleased that we recognized them. I loved that. I'll definitely be going to see them live again.
As night fell, the crowd really began to grow, until it looked like this during Groove Armada's set.
We skipped out partway through Tiesto's set to get some rest for the next day. While it was rainy and muggy on Friday, Saturday was beautiful, with the sun providing some much needed color to my pasty behind. We showed up at the venue just in time to catch Damian Marley & Nas' set. Needless to say, the two of them put on one hell of a show, and the sudden influx of marijuana smog was a testament to the crowd's enthusiasm. It ain't everyday you get to hear God's Son and Bong Jr. perform One Love.
The afternoon wore on and by nightfall, the place was packed. Here's a look at the video content during Armin van Buuren's set.
The crowd loved the pyrotechnics. Hands up!
And then it was time for SHM to go up. As a side note, Florence from Florence & the Machine (another one of my favorite bands at the moment) was supposed to perform with them, but for whatever reason, the arrangement fell through and she never took the stage. Huge bummer? Oh yeah. Anyway, it was Figge's first time working with them, and despite weeks of hard work and two days of prep, the show wasn't without its hiccups. That's the nature of live events like this, though, and everything that went wrong this time will no doubt be a learning experience that will make next time that much better. It wasn't perfect, but congrats on a helluva job, Fig.
We closed off the night by catching Ghostland Observatory on one of the side stages. I only knew a couple of songs by the Austin duo beforehand, but they put on a spastic and energetic show. Great fun.
Sunday was our only day to really enjoy Miami, but unfortunately the weather got muggy again and Fig had to spend the bulk of the day catching up on some work. We finally managed to get out of the hotel around 9 PM, and we promptly headed to South Beach for some good Cuban eats at Puerta Sagua.
After that we hit the beach just to check it out, despite the fact that it was dark and mostly deserted. We took a moment to just stand on the sand and bask in the warm wind blowing in from the Atlantic.
And then we messed around with long exposures.
All in all, it was a spectacular weekend, certainly a lot more fun than I expected it to be. I'll have to come back to actually enjoy the beaches in the daytime, but until then, I'll have house music pulsating pleasantly in my head everytime I think of Miami.
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