Carl Cox and Friends at Ultra Music Festival 2011 Day One, March 25
Categories: Ultra Music Festival
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| Camille Lamb |
| British music mogul Carl Cox |
The Three Deck Wizard (AKA Carl Cox) and a couple of his friends, Laurent Garnier and Loco Dice, kept last night's crowd of young heathens sweaty and screaming at the New Carl Cox and Friends Two-Level Mega Structure. (Sorry, that's what the event is calling it.)
Three-decade electronic music vet and French DJ-producer Laurent Garnier spun on a level platform on the right side of the stage. His synth-y set seethed mellowness as the sea of bodies became deliriously entrenched in the groove.
Three-decade electronic music vet and French DJ-producer Laurent Garnier spun on a level platform on the right side of the stage. His synth-y set seethed mellowness as the sea of bodies became deliriously entrenched in the groove.
As dark set in, the bass evolved into a driving rhythm and the dance floor pulsated while smoke billowed out from the sides of the stage.
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| Camille Lamb |
| Laurent Garnier in the Carl Cox and Friends Mega Structure |
When Loco Dice took over, taking a perch atop a huge spaceship-like DJ pod (think Lite Brite on mushrooms), the energy stepped up yet another notch. He started the set with a fat gummy-bear bouncing beat. He gave a physical performance, shoving his gear and bending our ears with chainsaw sounds.
The younger people on the dance floor, their eyelids shiny, munched on lit-up pacifiers, smoked cigarette after cigarette, and jumped on the mounds of trash gathering under their feet. A middle-aged woman with mom-jeans and dumps like a truck spun glow sticks at the back of the stage... poorly. Teens hopped onto each others' shoulders, pumped their fists, and screamed like maniacs.
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| Camille Lamb |
Then the legend himself took over the ship. True to Cox's Ultra 2010 aesthetic, tight-bodied dancers in fishnets and metallic lingerie emerged from the wings of the stage.
"I'm a big Carl Cox fan," said Nicolas Hutchins while dancing at the front of the pack. A consultant from San Francisco, he came in for his first Ultra this year. "He's the king. He should be wearing a crown," he declared.
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| Camille Lamb |
| Guy with Pirates of the Caribbean-style ghoulish glowstick gas-mask jams outside Carl Cox tent |
Cox weaved brassy, soulful horns into his set while shafts of color-shifting lasers shot clear across the crowd under the immense tent. An acrobatic dancer slid dangerously down a thick draping rope hanging from the 100-foot ceilings. The floor pounded.
And the party raged till midnight.
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