When I first booked my ticket to Detroit, Michigan to attend Movement, I hadn’t actually heard of it before. A friend had mentioned that they were going and I thought it might be fun to tag along given the epic line up. In previous trips to the States, I had attended a party or two in New York City and had left with the feeling that the true techno scene was relatively small. They do like Deadmau5 and all thing Dim Mak though. I booked my ticket and a month later was landing in Detroit.
I’m not sure what images you have of Detroit but it wasn’t what I expected. Coming through customs at LAX, the customs officer asked curiously, “why would you want to go there?” It really was deserted like he had said except that the buildings are grand – think New York without the insanely huge skyscrapers and a third of the size. I’m sure that once upon a time in the not too distant past, this city was heaving with people and life. The death of the car industry has really taken its toll on this city. In any case, all this hadn’t really changed what I expected of this festival.
The opening party the night before the festival’s first day was held in St.Andrew’s church. It’s an old converted church that regularly holds club nights. Its renovations are more Q-Bar than Greenwood, just for the record. It has three levels: a basement, ground and an onlooking mezzanine floor and a top floor chill out room. Despite feeling the full effect of jetlag, Speedy J impressed as did Ryan Elliot, a Canadian based out of Berlin and Seth Troxler. I hear that he’s a Detroit native. One of the girls behind the bar told me that the reason they have bouncers standing in front of the girls bathroom is so that guys can’t enter the bathrooms and rape the girls. Great start to my stay in Detroit – thanks.
The people in Detroit are really friendly. The locals called it “that techno fest” and love it that you’ve come to their city for it. A girl I met from Manhattan called it “dimpf” – I guess that’s how you say DEMF. In the marketing material, the festival was described as a showcase. Personally, I dig that way of pitching the event. It’s almost like Carl Craig, this year’s event director, is saying that these are the acts I like and maybe you’ll like them too. The festival is notably located in a small venue. It’s about the size of a football field. It doesn’t take half an hour to walk from one stage to the other. In fact, the layout and overall sound production of this festival was medal-worthy; five stages all within no more than ten minutes walk of each other. On the first day, I saw DJ Sneak in amongst the crowd enjoying the tunes of Marco Carola. The Movement stage was pretty neat. It wasn’t a deep stage. I didn’t need binoculars to see the decks. The stage faced the main road so all noise from this stage escaped into the deserted streets of downtown Detroit.
There is an underground stage. The stage is literally in a car parking lot under the main festival. Rolando mixed up a storm here on the second day. He’s a talented one behind the decks. Given the amount of concrete surrounding this stage (in fact, if you exclude people this was the only thing surrounding the stage) the sound was really decent. The party had lots of young ravers and dressed so you knew they were ravers. Fluro is clearly still popular in some parts. No worries, I'm still all clad in black. Phew! I should add that I also spotted a lady over the age of 70 in a wheelchair waving her glowsticks.
The Red Bull stage probably had the sweetest spot of all. It had a nice view of the river on one side. I had met the girls running this stage in the hotel that morning and they told me that each year they try to introduce a new sound to the audience. This year they said they were trying to introduce some more dubstep. New? Oh well, it's North America. They are still resisting dubstep a little I think.
The main drawcards of the festival were Plastikman on the first night and Inner City on the second. Ricardo Villalobos cancelled at the last minute due to visa issues. Fuck me but in his place, we were treated to a rare set by Hawtin on the Beatport stage but I will come to that later. The Vitamin C stage is the main stage at the festival. It’s a man made amphitheatre so good views are everywhere. Plastikman wasn't really for me. Everyone else seemed to be going off to the visual extravaganza but I must have missed the memo. DJ Sneak’s sunset set on the second day was a notable stand out. I like his DJ-ing style. You can tell he is really loving it out there. He was happy, totally rocking out and it was very infectious. At this point, I met another guy from Detroit who was probably in his late 30s who told me that he comes to one day of this festival every year. He said that he’d been coming for the last ten years – mad!
Jamie Jones, Cassy, Paco Osuna, Martin Buttrich and Chris Leibing all played on the Beatport stage. It’s not hard to see why this was my favourite stage. Cassy played an all vinyl set. I love it when female DJs play really dark and hard tracks. As mentioned earlier, Villalobos was supposed to close this stage on the Saturday night but instead Richie Hawtin in his capacity as Richie Hawtin did. It was k-crazy! And so this I did like very much! Venue sidenote - this stage faced the water. No issues with stages being so close together when the sound is facing away from each other.
So I can’t not mention the two after parties that I attended. One of them was located at a rollerskating rink far into the suburbs of Detroit. We had the coolest taxi driver. I was the only Asian. Byron the only red head and Nicola the only blonde. Kenny Dixon Jr aka Moodymann played at this one. He went for a rollerskate later as well. I also attended a day party on the third day at Old Miami. Old Miami must have been an old western saloon in times past with real cowboys. The party was held in the backyard of this old shack. Think a garden that someone who lives in the Blue Mountains might have. Totally insane party. It started raining and then raining hardier at around 1pm. No one left and the music just got louder. Then it got too humid and started hailing and so I left. Matthew Dear and Lee Curtiss played at this one amongst others. Most memorable moment – walking into the pile of human-ness that was Hawtin and his beautiful model lady partner canoodling on the grass – I swear I did not see them. How embarrassing.
That’s all. Cool party. Did I drop enough names? I didn’t get to see everyone. I slept through Moritz Von Oswald and Model 500 (sad!) but not to worry since there is always next time. I'd totally recommend this festival and maybe head to Mutek in Montreal the weekend after as well if you're a real keen bean. Next festival I’d like to attend – Labyrinth in Japan. I guess I really just love observing how different cultures party.
(I'm looking forward to heading back to Sydney. Looking forward to partying with you soon! xxx)
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