FUTURE MUSIC QUANTIFIED BY WAX VOLCANIC (that’s him above)
Future Music Festival as a Sort of Debutante Ball for Attendees Who Are Simultaneously Young, Male and Gym Addicted:
Number of Security Clearance Points Between the Train Station Platform and the Entrance to the Main Stage:
- 4
Acts on the Future Music Festival 2014 Lineup That Sounded Like Forgotten Members Of My Grade 2 Art Class:
- Joel Fletcher
- Will Sparks
- Paul KalBrenner
- Markus Schulz
- Martin Garrix
-Guy Gerber
- Porter Robinson
- Naughty Boy
A Cursory Sampling of T-Shirts at Future Music 2014:
- Proved impossible. There were literally too few T-shirts. What upper body clothing existed in non-singlet form was hastily jammed into the waistlines of shorts upon entry to the festival. Apologies.
The Onion-Style ‘Festival Within A Festival’ That Took Place In Flemington Racecourse on March 9, 2014:
Things That The Outer Rings Promised Us:
1- A 'Forever Moment’ where the world would melt away, and we could be free of jobs, responsibility, even mortality. A sort of aspiration to Godhood, felt most acutely in the soaring highs before the beat dropped, in the gratuitous (ie non-functional) appearance of celebrity (Pharrell) that we could bask in the ambit of, in the proliferation of 'Ultimate Freedom and Pure Escape’ type mantras peppered liberally through the saccharine pop anthems billowing from the stages, and in the phrases shouted by the acts like “Who wants to get free with us right now?” (Rudimental)
2- That we’re a part of some kind of mortally important purpose, evoking a stark militarism to some of the proceedings. (Easy examples are the military-style drum in Trap songs, skull and death symbology in a lot of the DJs’ and attendees aesthetics, and mass use of fightin words like the conveniently cryptic “Fight For Your Right” (Dada Life)
Things That The Inner Rings Promised Us (And Mostly Broke):
- FAME: At the 'Rdio 'Swipe Station’, where I queued for 10:34, waiting to swirl my electronic wristband over a sensor, in the hope of the LED light to turn red, so I could meet a FMF 2014 artist. It went red.
-FLIGHT: The huge, conspicuous tower in the centre of the Festival, signed the 'Channel V Stage Dive’. It’s only purpose was for winners of a competition to throw themselves from the tower onto a giant inflatable mattress. I was turned away three times by two separate people.
- EXCLUSIVITY: At the 'V Energy Room’, where I queued for 27:12 I was offered two small cups of V before I even reached the entrance, which only heightened my expectations of what was inside their green inflatable club. It was profoundly, even dangerously packed. It took some minutes to cross the dancefloor, past the bar, stacked high with V cups filled with the same low quality/high priced liquor that was available outside the tent’s walls. When I exited, the queue had almost doubled in size.
- THE INFINITE: The Lipton Iced Tea stand, who, true to their slogan for the day (“Buy None Get One Free”) were cracking glistening rows of cans from festival open to festival close
- LUXURY: The upper level of the bar straddling the space between the two main stages. The restricted upper floor had banners over the side advertising for both “Upgrades to VIP” and “Frozen Cocktails. Even the red, inflatable Rdio mascot to the bar’s left had his eyes set jealously on the upper floor. I was also turned quickly (and reasonably) away from here.
What Macklemore’s Very Sincere Grin Reminded Me of For the Duration of the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis Set:
Two Faces Observed Experiencing Pure Joy at Future Music 2014
- The drummer in Rudimental, thrashing in an elastic fury at the drums, head swivelling with feeling
- A guy with a singlet on which read: 'Partier’. A chemically induced smile spread like thick peanut butter over his face as he told the Police emphatically how much he appreciated their presence, but they should drop what they were doing immediately, and come party. They declined.
Reasons Why, During Brodinski’s Set, I Felt Like My Drink Might Have Been Spiked:
- Remembering, very suddenly, how much i like dance music
- An unbalanced, almost aggressive love for the people immediately around me
- Instant movement, after a day of reluctant shuffling
- The simultaneous desire for Brodinski to play all day and for me to immediately interrupt him and tell him how much I liked what he was doing
- Forgetting almost completely about my sunburn
People at Future Music 2014 Who Handled the Heat the Best:
- The Police
- Pikachu
-Zebras (X2)
- Tiger
- Lion (who stripped off during the day, returning to the form of a man with hairy pants)
Three Questions I Overheard From Different Stages At Various Points During the Day, After a Climbing Build and Right Before the Beat Dropped:
- "Can you put your hands up?”
- “Are you ready to bounce once again?”
- Are you guys ready to get ugly as fuck right now?“
- "Can I see more girls on shoulders? More girls, more girls, more girls”
The Two Stages Most Appropriately Titled:
- KNIFE PARTY’S HAUNTED HOUSE STAGE: As the name suggested, this stage boasts everything that belonged in a tightly sealed crypt. Things like dubstep and the dance that seemed to accompany it (despairingly similar to 'skanking’). And also what I assumed was long dead—Knife Party’s particularly plain version of Hard Electro, which sort of just sounds like the family dog being sexually assaulted by Asimo, the Mitsubishi robot.
- THE COCOON STAGE: A very womb like experience, thick with warm bodies gestating under a giant white tent. Employing the Ibiza-type vibe ('Space’ t-shirts aplenty at this Stage I assure thee) which turned into a sort of comatose over 28’s mixer, embarrassingly latin and increasingly sloppy
What I Sincerely Wish Pharrell Was Hiding Underneath His Hat During His Embarrassingly Exposed 'Sometimes-Sing-A-Long-To-The-DJ’ Act:
Why Gesaffelstein is Always Worth the Wait:
- Because of the audacious drama of it all. The beginning started pitch black and whirring drone, an orange glow pulsing occasionally through the gloom as Mike Levy puffed on a cigarette behind his opulent plinth. Then the descent into outright digital savagery, followed by long, staggering interludes, prompting a girl behind me to yell: “What are you doing to us?!” But after brain blunting repetition and abyssal grooves, Gesaffelstein becomes a monument, ending with a stuttering beat, matched to images of the birth, growth, and excess of western civilisation. The security sharking through the crowd to stop people filming (a contractual request I imagine) actually added to the performance. We were trapped in those moments, there was no fast forwarding his lurching troughs that wound towards his gold-shattered peaks.
Most Accurate Overheard Quote of the Day:
“Yeah, no it’s DJ’s. You’ll have the best time ever. It’s called Foamerama, the stage. Yeah still DJ’s, but with foam. Just come, you’ll see” (girl on phone, covered in foam).
Most Inaccurate Overheard Quote of the Day:
“I want to say well done and thanks to Australia for showing the world what equality looks like” - Macklemore
