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let's see if i can put together a more coherent review of the weekend now...
friday - we hit up chemical brothers, then lee burridge, then pvd
chemical brothers was pretty sick, their production reminded me of daft punk's minus the pyramid. this was my first visit to the concourse, i thought it was a great venue with a lot of potential for other shows (sasha & digweed maybe?  ). i wasn't really diggin ladytron's set though and it seemed like most of the crowd wasn't either. everyone was there for chems. another planet can really work on booking better opening acts for these kinds of shows, the last few i've been to didn't compliment at all. the crowd there was kinda weird, definitely different from the clublanders, but once chemical brothers got on, everyone was goin nuts together and the crowd seemed to fit together more.
we left chems 30 min early to cab it over and beat the crowd to mighty, except it took us about 20 min to hail an unoccupied cab. when we got there, the line wasn't bad, 5 min wait. i was hoping mighty would have rented some real subwoofers for the night, but when we got in it was the same sound. nice and crisp, but no audible bass below the 80hz mark. WACK! this setup ruined satoshi tomiie night months back and was sure to ruin lee's bass-heavy music too. other than that, the club's 'outerspacey' decor was pretty sick, the best i've seen the place look. the music outside was hella sick too, a lot of my friends enjoyed as much or more than the music inside. i never got a chance to go in the party bus i kept hearing about afterwards cause the patio was jam packed with bodies.
around 3:30 i was reluctantly dragged out of mighty to catch the end of pvd's set on the other end of soma. i wasn't real thrilled about seeing pvd again because the last set i heard from him at cream, amnesia was filled with fluffy crowdpleasers for the last 2 hours. we get into 1015 and to my surprise pvd is banging it out hard! no greece 2000 crap, just solid, edgy beats. i'm really coming around to see how sooo many touring djs from across the world play their best sets in sf. i mean pvd's set at 1015 blew his amnesia, ibiza set away. and cream is supposed to be the premiere trance party of the world! pvd's set passed by pretty fast for me, then taj went on to close up the night. somehow no matter how hard the headliner rocks the crowd, taj is able to step up the energy a few notches from the first vinyl he slaps down. it really is something to watch...
this night reaally kicked my ass and we went back to the hotel to get some sleep, but at most we got a little bit of 'rest'.
saturday - i spent most of the day at spundae, local love, listed, supperclub, opel/qool and kontrol
since we were just sitting around all morning, we decided to go down and walk around (our hotel is right on market & mason). we get to the staging area around 11 and i'm totally out of it. my phone is dead at this point, which really hijacked my entire day. when the floats start moving, we're at the back with spundae. once on market, we start powerwalking up the line to the local love float. here we find a ton of familiar faces all sucked into the beats vahid, skwallie & lexxx are dropping. vahid was impressive, but what really took me back was the style skwallie & lexxx were playing, bangin! we ended up following local love all the way to the festival grounds. at the festival grounds i buy my first beer, smoke my first bowl and start wandering the field. this is where the sequence of events gets really hazy, but i wander over to spundae's float to say hi to a bunch of people, then back around where the brooding beats at kontrol really catch my ear. from this point on, i was completely sucked into the four prog/house floats lined up against city hall: kontrol, supperclub, opel & listed. my god the beats here were so fresh and so clean i didn't really care that i was on my own at this point. i probably spent a good 3-4 hours here before moving on. all of a sudden i remembered that 3-4 hours ago i was trying heading back to local love, so i did and just in time to catch the end of ismael's set. as i was heading over, i noticed DAMN, there's a helluva crowd at local love, what's reaaally goin on?! the sound of pounding psy trance begins to fade into my peripheral and i was like oh shit, ismael's up. the crowd here was much more enthusiastic and energetic, which took me a minute to acclimate to. i mingled a bit and pretty soon infected mushroom was up. i saw these guys do a live set at 1015 a while back and i must say i thought musically, their dj set was better. the live set was more fun to watch though of course. after hearing most of mushroom's set, i headed back over to listed hoping lee was on. no dice, but i did meet up with a bunch of la friends and together we were all sucked into the beats once again. by about 8pm, i was getting really tired again, found my roommates and we headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.
saturday night - we hit up the bill graham afterparty, then 1015, then endup
i forget when we got to bill graham, but once inside robert nickson was on. i wasn't really feelin his music and just kinda stood there in the crowd like a sore thumb. i was too tired to even put forth an effort. once j00f got on though, the sound resonated with me and i began to move with the music. most people were hoping j00f would bang it out, i was anticipating a slower set a la global trance grooves 52. well fortunately he banged it out, it was one of the best sets of the night. easily the best trance set. dj three's intermission set was great, even though it was like 2 tracks. the rare treat of hearing that kind of sound at bill graham was captivating. gabriel & dresden had a good start with those prog house tracks, but then they went and fucked everything up by playing tracks like tracking treasure down and the killers. ugh. this was my cue to take a seat in the bleachers. when sasha came on, i stayed in the bleachers just cause it felt so damn good to be sitting down. maybe it was the j i smoked during his slot, but i loooooved sasha's set. it went by so goddamn fast i felt cheated. spundae DEFINITELY needs to work on a sasha & digweed concert at bill graham. i could tell by three and sasha's short sets, the sound those guys produce would own every other show that's ever passed through that venue. by the time ferry got on, my legs were well rested and we decided to brave the crowd below once more. ferry's set was great, it was nice to finally hear brainbox on a 'club system'. we saw some things down in that crowd that would give young kids nightmares though... i will leave it at that!
our trip to 1015 was a big ass blur, i honestly don't even remember walking in, but apparently we did! afterwards we stopped back at the hotel for another breather. i heard from someone that lee burridge's set at endup was going to be a morning set so we rushed out the door around 7. when we get there, i see the timeslot list posted on the dj booth... lee burridge: 12-8pm. holy fuck! fuck! fuck! i already knew i was doomed. there was no way i was gonna make it another 12 hours. well i put forth my best effort and made it to about 3pm at which point i was like i could stay longer, but if i stayed until i began dozing off, how was gonna get home? so i left and ran into my friends at the carwash lot on my way out. apparently they had just found parking when i had thought the whole time they left early lol. in retrospect, i regret with ever fiber of my being, leaving the endup early. my friend who was bored by lee @ mighty could not stop dancing until 6 @ endup. fuck.
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