Have to start these reviews somewhere so why not start with Friday? After (somewhat) recovering from a very, very busy 3 days of nonstop dancing, I am finally able to clear my head and recall what the hell happened during this marathon of a weekend. As most people did on Friday, our schedule brought us to the Fool's Gold tent for the majority of the day with stops off at Netsky, Reboot, and Luciano throughout.
Treasure Fingers
Treasure Fingers started out the day for us playing his usual mix of nu disco fire and chiller electronic tracks. It was a perfect way to start the day as everyone's feet needed a little bit of a warm up for what was about to ensue. One of the best tracks that we did not suspect him to play was by Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, who we recently saw at LPR, called Tapes & Money.
All summer long, Verboten has been killing it with their techno/deep house/tech house parties all over the city and they are showing no signs of letting up. I initially was really looking forward to the Guy Gerber Supplement Facts boat cruise but ended up missing it due to some last minute vacation time. Thanks to Verboten, I was given a second chance at glory and immediately purchased Hot Creations tickets upon their release.
We started off the night exploring the massive boat, the Hornblower Infinity, which apparently can hold 700 - 1,000 people. As per usual, Verboten kept it at a reasonable capacity where there was plenty of room to dance and mingle with everyone. After exploring the boat's ins and outs while dancing to the music all around us, we ended up on the top deck with Infinity Ink who absolutely crushed it. We first recognized some Dirtybird tracks such as Justin Martin's Ruff Stuff:
Hit the jump to read the rest of our review below.
We split up this post based on which writer knew each artist the best, so enjoy. Also, right up front we'd like to give serious props to Made Event for another incredibly smoothly run event. There's no doubt you guys are one of the best in the business.
Pleasurekraft
Oh Pleasurekraft, I have been waiting to see you for years now and FINALLY was able to catch you guys (at least 1 of the 2). I was running on about 3 hours of drunken sleep when I got there but I made myself go and it was so worth it despite almost falling asleep on the boat over. Needless to say, once I stepped foot off that ferry that thumping bass immediately woke me up especially when I heard the unmistakable carny/circus-like sounds of Pleasurekraft starting up.
If I do recall correctly, the first Pleasurekraft jam I recognized was one of their newer songs, Murdered Out featuring Belocca. This was only a brief sampling of their own collection to start, as the tech house vibes continued to groove further along into the night picking from songs other than their own to ease everyone in.
Pleasurekraft - Satyr Song (Original Mix) at Gov's Island
Another highlight from this streak of songs was the fact that the sample for Skeleton Key was revealed although I still have been unable to find it myself. Everyone thought the vibe was being switched to Trap randomly when in actuality you could hear the "I'm bigger than that" sample in all its true, higher pitched glory. This obviously was then picked up right into Skeleton Key for a full helping of their newest release with Green Velvet.
All in all, Pleasurekraft did the best of the night for me and I would love to see them again. Sadly, I could not muster enough energy for the up-close and personal after party at LPR as my body hated from the damage I had done to it in the days prior. Rumor has it that they could be returning to NYC with Green Velvet later in the Fall so keep your ears at the ready for that, I know I will. I just can't get enough of that ol' apple pie melody.
Ps. If anyone can ID the song that had a sample along the lines of "You always sayin' how tough work was today, well guess what? You ain't at work. DANCE", I will love you forever and ever.
This past Thursday night nyc was lucky enough to be graced by Fake Blood FOR FREE. This being the 4th time I've seen British DJ Theo Keating, one might think his sets would start to get stale and boring to me. This couldn't be further from the truth. Every set from him has completely different, yet equally impressive.
Fake Blood came out with an eclectic mix of music, ranging from his classic electro sound, to fun disco tunes, and even got into some tech house at points. Interestingly enough, he skipped most of his biggest hits and went with a setlist in which I could only recognize a handful of songs. Whatever he was playing, he kept the packed out rooftop bar moving the entire night.
At the end of the night a friend and myself had the opportunity to shoot the shit with the man himself for a few quick minutes and thank him for the show he just put on. Gotta love a venue thats so small and personal that you can show your appreciation to the DJ.
Here's a few of my favorites from him:
The club erupted when he played this one
Some of that deep, gritty synth that Fake Blood is known for
Before I go on any rant about how the event was organized and whatnot, I will say (and later review) that I went to Pacha afterwards to catch Prydz and had a great time because you simply cannot go wrong with Prydz. However, the Pacha venue proved to be disappointing for many, as usual. Luckily, it seems that they have issued full refunds through their ticket provider, clubtickets.com, for this event or free tickets for Thomas Gold at Pacha on August 11th. All you have to do is email helpdesk@clubtickets.com. I only recently did this and have not heard back yet (UPDATE: You can get tickets or a full refund, either one works and clubtickets is VERY quick and professional about it all) and I would recommend including your confirmation number and event name in your email to expedite the process. Anyway, on to the rant/review.
To start, I got to Beekman at around 11:30PM and was greeted by a massive line to get inside. I imagine this was largely due to Identity ending but I still had never seen the line there stretch so far back. For Maya Jane Coles and Maceo Plex at Beekman, the line was practically nonexistent and there was a very solid crowd there. Granted, the Maya Jane Coles crowd was not oversold like this was.
Eventually, everyone made it into the venue despite the crowd and got to enjoy the legend that is Prydz. Only problem was that this fun lasted for about 30 minutes tops. The question everyone is wondering is how on earth does something like this happen? Well, in all honestly, I am about as baffled as everyone else out there. If they had bothered to look into ANY of the past events at Beekman (Maya Jane Coles/Maceo Plex, Art Department, Knife Party) they would have known that the sound had to be reduced at all of these events and some even shut down for a little while. This was with the venue being much less packed too. Oh, and I almost didn't touch on the bathroom situation which was the worst I've seen anywhere but whatever, all I know is that entire boardwalk was covered in piss (including the mall).
After being completely shut down, they decided to try and salvage what was left of the night by moving the party to Pacha, where Madeon was already playing. I'm fairly certain every single person at Beekman groaned in unison upon hearing this announcement as everyone thought it would be much more packed than Beekman was. Some went, some did not, my friends and I went to the nearest Duane Reade to regain our buzz (great decision might I add) and then proceeded to Sullivan Room for Justin Martin. Some of us actually went in but the majority of us ended up sucking it up and moving on to Pacha rather than coughing up more cash.
