|
This was only my second WEMF, so the review will be quite detailed. Note: "we" usually refers to Katie and I.
Got our campground all set up right around the time Pendulum started on Friday. Hauling all your shit from the car to the camp ground in the dark really SUCKS ASS. It was sooo much easier on Sunday morning when we just pulled up our car to our tent, threw all of our shit in, and drove out. The campground itself was nice though - lots of space all around, even on Saturday night. It definitely didn't feel as crowded as in Tweed (memories of that dusty/sandy campground in the middle where all the tents were sitting right next to each other).
Met up with Cro_Addict finally (wicked hanging out with you all weekend buddy), and we went to go see what was happening in the main stages. Pendulum either disappointed me, or didn't impress me at all. I can't make up my mind on which. I never really expected much from the guy, but even still, his set was mediocre. He was bouncing back and forth between some Rockish tunes with no bass at all, to the popular Pendulum tunes we've all gotten sick of already. The new remix of Slam sucked - they should focus on making new beats, not rehashing shit we've heard millions of times. A highlight was him dropping a remix of Daft Punk's Harder Better Faster Stronger though. Loved that tune. Oh, and ending with "Hold Your Colour" was cool too - don't hear that too often in the clubs. Jelo & Glaude weren't much better. Musically, my Friday night was very meh.
Shutting down the music at 2am was another disappointment as I was still very much high. However, it did give us a chance to bounce through all the renegade stages out there, before they shut those down too. Booo. So lesson #1 is definitely to arrive earlier on Friday so you can go to sleep in peace by 2am. After renegades were gone, we went to find the TA brethren. Wicked meeting & chatting with all the TAs I never really had a chance to talk to before. Jay was fucking hilarious as always. At this point, I started REALLY missing the campfires that Tweed had last year, cause it was bloody cold at night - even the combination of jeans + sweater + blanket didn't make me feel as toasty as I wanted to be. Early in the morning, Penny comes by the TA area, and tells us there's some chill DNB music playing on the renegade stage by the bleachers. So a bunch of us go to listen to the music and to watch the sunrise from the bleachers.
The DNB set she was talking about turned out to be Bus Driver's set, and it wins my award for most impressive set of the weekend. Holy fucking hell it was so perfect for the early Saturday morning. Chill beats, yet soo grimy, dirty and fucking addicting. I didn't know one song that he dropped, or even the genre it would be classified under, but I loved every minute of it.
After he finished, the sun still wasn't up, and all I remember is killing time with some TAs up on the bleachers, having sketchy conversations with feedurhead about seagulls munching on the Ecstasy ravers dropped, and then tripping out and glowsticking in the air. WTF. We chatted for a while, but the sun was STILL not coming up and it was still freezing outside, so I said fuck it, and went to back to my tent to sleep. As soon as I get settled in my tent, ready to pass out, the sun comes up and starts shining right on the tent. Fuck.
Woke up on Saturday morning at 8/9am to the sound of the U-Haul van that parked right by us blasting Hardstyle. I like Hardstyle, but not at 8am after 2 hours of sleep. However, later on in the day that van was fucking awesome, playing a mix of Hardstyle and House, and even throwing in Nirvana here and there. The only thing I didn't like was that there was the sound from another 2 stages was leaking into our campground, so at times it felt like we were listening to 3 songs at once. Tried to go back to sleep, but the constant BOOM-BOOM-BOOM made sleeping a pipe dream, and we got up by 10am. Ted made a fucking awesome bacon & eggs breakfast for us, which hit the spot perfectly.
By around noon, there was nothing really good playing anywhere, so we decided to go on our first ever shroom trip. We did about 3 grams each, and just went from one renegade stage to the next. Don't really remember anything outstanding playing at any one of them. Actually, the one I do remember is the DNB renegade stage on the road right outside the entrance to the main stages (dunno what it was called). The DJ (no idea who it was) was dropping some pretty good tunes, but the thing that made it memorable was the fact that he looked to be about 15 years old. By around 3pm we realized just how fucked 3g of shrooms gets you, so we went back to our tent because we didn't want to become one of those people that the sketchy stories circulate about. We tripped the fuck out in the extreme heat of the tent for about 3 hours, during which I'm pretty sure both of us had a heat stroke. Shroom trips are ... weird. There's really no way to accurately describe the feeling. For me, it wasn't as much a mind fuck, as it was a sensory perception fuck. Everything felt weird to the touch, some things I couldn't feel at all, some things felt very weird, etc etc. I remember laughing randomly a lot, then realizing there was no reason to laugh, and then laughing at myself for laughing at nothing. Hhahha, but I think the best part was trying to complete a thought - everytime I tried to make a coherent train of thought that would lead to something, it would get siderailed by the effects of the shrooms, and I'd never finish it. It was frustrating and hilarious at the same time.
We finally got enough strength to climb out by 6pm, and holy crap coming out of the sauna-tent into the cool evening air felt like you were re-born. Shrooms were still in effect, but at least by then I could function properly again. By this time we already missed a couple of the DJs we wanted to see, and no one who was playing really interested us, so we had a bit to eat, and walked about the grounds again. Grabbed our media passes (lesson #2 - keep the media passes in your pocket because we've had to explain to everyone dozens of times why we had them), and noticed that the 15 year old DJ was still spinning, albeit without a shirt on this time. We didn't stick around to listen to what he was dropping, but it must have been quite good because he drew quite a crowd to that stage. Around 8, Katie and I decided to actually start working on the interviews we were supposed to do later, but since all the DJs who we wanted to talk to were coming on much later, we ended up deciding to sleep for a bit till they came on, so we could chat with them after their set. Of course, we ended up sleeping till 3:30am, by which time missed most of the DJs we wanted to see, lol. Lesson #2, do all the "work" before WEMF cause there's 0 chance you'll do it during WEMF. Lesson #3, sleep a lot on Saturday morning, and don't try to sleep on Saturday evening, or at least set a fucking alarm so you don't wake up in the middle of the night. However, the main guy we wanted to hear and interview was still coming on later (Dillinja), so we bounced out of the tent convinced the night wasn't a total write-off yet.
Arrived at the DNB stage to find Dillinja didn't show up, which was a major disappointment, as he was the one we were really looking to hear at WEMF. The disappointment didn't last long however, as DJ SS got behind the decks to replace Dillinja, and promptly began to rinse the fuck out. Loved his set - probably the best set I've heard at the DNB stage. I think my favourite track that he dropped was some remix of DJ SS - Lighter. If someone can ID, that'd be awesome. I have it on video - will post later.
After SS finished, we decided to check out the 4/4 stage, where I stumbled into DJ Bratan dropping Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up, then Prodigy - Out Of Space, then Underworld - Born Slippy, and then another classic Trance track that I can't quite ID now. That part was fantastic. Actually, his whole set was fantastic - good beats all around, awesome track selection.
Haha, around this time Katie and I found the VIP section, which was pretty much empty by now. It was also this time when we found out it had its own bathrooms, a kitchen, and a room to watch both the DNB stage and the 4/4 stage from. Also, we found remains of what looked to be all the confiscated beer.  Lesson #4: find out what spoils the VIP section contains as soon as possible.
After Bratan, we decided to venture back into the DNB stage, where Wendy Law was on. She was playing a good Breaks set, but my only complaint is that maybe putting jumpy, energetic Breaks at 6am on Sunday morning wasn't the best idea as I was exhausted as fuck, and definitely far too tired to try and dance to music with that high a bpm count.
Overall, I had a great time. It wasn't as good music-wise as last year (I was really missing some proper Trance and Psy on the main stage this year), but the drugs more than made up for it. And on that note, I think I'll take it easier on the consumption of illegal substances next year - unlike Ecstasy, you can't really do shrooms and stay functional/productive. Maybe we just did too much though.
Random notes:
- The Hardsound Stage was annoying me the entire weekend. Whenever I got close to it, all I heard is something closely resembling a machinegun going off. I don't mind Happy Hardcore, but not when it interferes so much with my enjoyment of other music.
PICS: http://utoronto.facebook.com/album....9e7&id=28114019
___________________
I'm the trouble starter, fuckin' instigator.
I'm the fear-addicted, danger illustrated.
|
?????
GOODTIMES!
