Today North Coast Music festival started off at around 4 with Orchard Lounge opening up the main stage. It was nice, especially for a starter DJ band that I had never heard of. So far into this the only things I had to do were go around the vendors, pick up tickets at Bottom Lounge and just take in the scene. For the first couple of hours, there was no sense of “music” but that was mainly because the entire crowd seemed to be trying to figure it all out. As a first year festival, one doesn’t necessarily know what type of people are going to be there or if it’s going to suck or anything. For me at least the festival didn’t start until Paul Van Dyk came out to a sea of hippies and euro club scenesters. He was late due to immigration at the airport and just tried to get it all under control and said sorry, in the beginning and at the end of the set. Overall the set felt like 30 minutes and he came out and tranced everyones pants off, along with a certain baby in the crowd-the rave baby. Unfortunately for some reason no photographers were allowed in the photo pits for the entire night so I was unable to get any photographs. Instead I just stood in the back, looked around and saw the front rows really get into him, and a myriad of people just nodding along.
After Paul Van Dyk got off, Pretty Lights, the Colorado duo made up of Derek Vincent Smith and Adam Deitch, performed at the stage next door. They raised the bar and blended a lot of great trippy hip-hop and funk to an ever growing crowd. The set was a great secondary act to catch especially because for the most part it was mellow and not so demanding. They even gave Chicago a special lil’ hip-hop set at the end but still for maybe my own personal taste or emotion, there was no real oomph, pizzow, or wowza, yet. It was nice.
The real show stoppers of the night were The Chemical Brothers. The entire set wasn’t really even music, it was the most emotional cinematic performance I’ve expirienced so far this year from all the electronic acts I’ve seen. If their performance were a film it would go something like this…
Giants wearing steel armor armed with synths and lasers for eyes raise up from beneath the Chicago soil and began to play, using the sky as a drum, the clouds as synths and everything else around them as supplements. Plicking and plucking sounds fall beneath lifting people’s emotions and spirits taking them into a ride through a fight scene, a political rally, a fight against aliens who with their UFO spinning create a piercing crying sound and then victory. At the end though they seem to give you a trailer for the sequel when a giant clown appears and all of the set they just performed seems a bit out of place but nonetheless makes you want more.
I was so surprised by The Chemical Brothers especially since they used little to no lyrics but managed to make such a performance so sentimental and personal. Not just that but it seemed the entire park was together as one wave. Even though, for me, the first day was somewhat cold and just another set of festival performances. The Chemical Brothers managed to make me forget where I was more than once and made me feel like it wasn’t just another festival performance but rather ardent emotions and situations implanting themselves in my brain through a performance not just a show.
Enjoy some of these snapshots I took on my Digital Harinezumi, I shoot with film so “high” quality photographs will not be up until after the festival.
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