Lifefest thoughts...
Hmmm, mixed emotions. Friday night's pre-party was good and bad. It was
great to see old friends and new (Rob, Bill, Diana, Keith, Dennis, Tristan,
Ben, Barry, Tim, Logic 7, Kevin, Carrissa etc...) and hear some fantastic
djing skills displayed at Amsterdam (not to mention great records). It's too
bad that Amsterdam probably had the finest young DJs in the area play and
few people danced. People stuck to the walls and kind of stared at the DJs
all night. Strange, especially with the incredible variety of techno, deep
house, funky house, ghetto tech etc.
Life Fest:
I was planning on going at 1200 and when I was running late I was upset that
I was going to miss a couple talented locals and Clark Warner. I arrived at
3pm and the gates are locked? What the hell?? Thankful for the press area I
entered to catch some of Clark's set and to watch a couple locals play for a
couple volunteers and people with press passes. That must have been quite
disappointing for them. I passed time waiting for the gates to open and let
some friends in. While vendors anticipated mass sales - the gates remained
closed and I hung out with some old friends at the Milk/Amsterdam/Slices
booth. I found it odd that at 330 pm there still wasn't much of a lineup.
Anyway, the gates opened and a crowd of people anxiously walked through (i'd
usually say flooded but there were too few people to label it "flooded").
The main stage didn't seem to get much attention for hours and a small child
could've counted how many people were there which kept me scratching my head
all day. Where was everyone? I enjoyed Clark's musical journey and then
headed over to see Ian Hind who played some nice classics and displayed his
909 programming skills. I managed to catch the end of Dale's set. Gene
Farris seemed to get people dancing and slowly got the crowd excited. I
retreated to the hill to catch some shade and decided to go home and freshen
up before Carl Craig and Rich went on (both of whom were who I was excited
to see). When I came back to the festival I got chills. Carl was spinning
and he has such a nice style. When the sun went down - the crowd seemed
ready to party (finally). Kevin Saunderson played a solid set and Inner City
was fun but I couldn't hear the drums at all which took away from the
intensity of their performance. With that sound system, the drums should
have been pounding and the bass guitar should've sliced through too to funk
up the place - didn't happen.
Then an erie, digital tone breaks through and people from all areas of the
festival rush to the main stage. The anticipation for Richie's set was
exciting to see and man can he mix. And as always, the sound guys seemed to
crank up the eq and volume of the sound system for Rich's set. Is their a
clause in his contract that says he must have the loudest set ;) or does he
just work the mixer better than everyone else? Anyways, great set by Rich -
I got chills through out his set. Great style and it was cool to have him so
close to the crowd as well.
The main stage area still wasn't full however and everyone had tons of room
to dance. Again - where was everyone?
Was Life Fest a success? I think it was a success and a stepping stone for
Windsor in relation to electronic music. Still - Windsor is a small
automotive based city and people come here to drink for the first time (age
19), they come here to dance at top 40 clubs with cheap drinks and hot body
contests, and the come to see naked women. And I heard a young american girl
shot someone downtown Windsor Saturday night too... damn. Come drink our
beer but please leave your guns at home. I also feel bad for vendors who
planned to sell to maybe tens of thousands and sold to a few thousand and
lost $$$$.
To Joe and Jeremy...great job on organizing the festival and making
everything about it feel extremely professional and tasteful. I hope it you
guys have Life Fest 2 because I loved being in Windsor and finally having
something to get excited about and many people I talked to felt the same
way. I know there were DJs and young artists from all over Canada, USA, and
Europe to attend the festival so hopefully the word gets out and will bring
more people out for next year's festival. I know the people who love
electronic music loved the festival. I did.
steve roy
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