Movement 08 – Another Great Year at DEMF
Saturday May 24, 2008
Well it’s been a busy couple weeks since we returned from the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. Among other things, Ankur closed on a house purchase and I moved my home office and switched platforms from Windows to Mac OSX. Chaos ensued of course, but it’s beginning to clear up. But not to worry – we’ve got lots of review content coming for DEMF! (We took over 3,000 photos.)
Based on last year’s experience, I certainly had high expectations for this event – and they were exceeded on every level. The weather, the sound and lighting, the crowd energy and the artist performances were all excellent. The organizers report that over 75,000 fans attended the festival – a huge increase over the 45,000 fans who attended in 2007 – but still comfortably within the capacity of the beautiful 14-acre venue at Hart Plaza.
On Saturday, we arrived around 4pm and got right into it listening to John Johr on the “Pioneer Pro DJ Stage” – which was a great sounding smaller stage. My other favorite sets on Saturday were by Justin Long, Stacey Pullen and Alex Under. But the highlight of the day for me was the super-hot set at the Beatport stage by Deadmau5 (pronounced “Dead Mouse” and born Joel Zimmerman) – a Progressive House artist and DJ from Toronto, Canada. Deadmau5 won Best Electro/House Artist, Most Influential Person, Best Progressive House Artist, and Best Single (“Not Exactly”) in the Beatport.com Music Awards 2008.
After the final festival set wrapped up around midnight, we regrouped and headed out to the jam-packed Contakt after-party featuring Richie Hawtin, where we continued groovin’ away until 4am. More to come. . .
. . . Mister Bill
