ULTRA MUSIC FESTIVAL OUTDOES ITSELF ONCE AGAIN IN 2018! (UMF + MMW Recap)

The post-festival depression has officially kicked in. Yesterday, I returned home to Providence, RI after another amazing week in Miami for Ultra Music Festival & Miami Music Week. We managed to cram in a ton of unforgettable shows, events and parties over 6 days in South Beach, so here is how it all went down last week:

2018 in Miami was going to be a different experience for me. I was finally booked for my first ever DJ performance at Miami Music Week & was hosting 2 additional parties for the weeklong buffet of dance events, but on the flip side, I would be on my own for the first time ever.

For the last 5 years, my best buddy Tim has been my rave partner in crime for Ultra/MMW. But this year, he wasn't going to make it. I was extremely bummed (and borderline scared) at the thought of going to UMF solo, but nothing would stop me from experiencing one of the greatest dance fests on the planet!

Things kicked off last Wednesday when I barely made it out of New England due to yet another snowstorm promising delayed/cancelled flights. On the Ultra Facebook group, dozens of attendees were reporting travel problems and some were even renting cars to make the 15+ hour drive from the northeast to southern Florida. Luckily for me, the weather had as much hype as Ultra's special mystery guest and when the snow didn't even fall, I was departing on-time with wheels up until Miami International Airport.

Wednesday night was a bit of a shit show that I won't get into. I was supposed to play my set in South Beach, but let's just say that certain promoters in Miami need to learn how to read their contracts before they decide to welch on booking DJs to play at their venues. Our crew ended up closing at the infamous Liquor Lounge on Collins Ave until the early morning hours of Thursday. After a few hours of rest, I called Tim to tell him about the gig that never happened. He could tell I was pretty upset that things weren't working out as I expected....but the one thing I really didn't expect was for him to call me back 5 minutes later and tell me he had purchased a plane ticket to come down and party with me for our fifth consecutive year. Friends like these are hard to find.

Thursday night was absolutely bonkers! We had our annual tradition of seeing Above & Beyond at the RC Cola Plant in Wynwood and this year's special guest was none other than Seven Lions! But before we made it to the show, BASSburger hosted our Miami edition of the BASSbus party bus series.

This was one of the most lit groups we've ever had on BASSbus...and I mean that literally. The open bar at Senor Frogs was definitely put to use and I'll be surprised if anybody actually remembers the ride to Wynwood. It was so great meeting all of the folks that traveled from around the country to party with us and we can't wait to see you at BASSbus Vegas! We finally arrived to Wynwood for the show around 10pm. RC Cola Plant is easily one of my favorite venues in the country. It sits right in the middle of Miami's graffiti district and everywhere you look, buildings/sidewalks/everything is covered in the most mind-blowing graffiti you've ever seen. It's outdoors too, so you really get a mini-festival experience in a truly unique setting.

Tim & I had seen Above & Beyond last month on the Common Ground tour, and since it was literally the exact same set we had seen before, we were basically just waiting for them to wrap up so we could experience the legend that is Seven Lions.

I'm going to save the majority of my opinion on this for another blog, but I think Above & Beyond have officially sold out. I love their music, but the fact that they have T-Mobile ads running before/after their sets + them charging $200 for a meet and greet seems like the money has officially started to take over their movement. Seven Lions however? Well, Seven Lions is the future....

This dude is seriously one of the best DJs/Producers in the game right now. He has figured out that some people want a little psytrance + dubstep along with their 128-133 bpm trance. The vibes in the crowd at RC Cola were unexplainable, but I've never had so much fun headbanging with trance fans in my entire life. If I can find the set from last Thursday, I'll be sure to post it. We arrived back at our hotel around 6am, a typical end of the night during Miami Music Week.

ULTRA DAY 1:

After a few hours of sleep, we headed to Senor Frogs to meet attendees for our 2nd party bus of the week that would transport dance fans from South Beach to Ultra Music Festival. Shoutouts to the folks from Vegas, Sweden, Germany and around the globe that pre-gamed with us on the way to Ultra! We had a few hours before the gates opened, so we swung by Mojitos at Bayfront Park to say hello to legendary raver Victor. I also bumped into some familiar faces from the Facebook group and other members of last year's Miami rave crew. That's one of the best parts of going to Miami for this week of events: you bump into people you see just a couple of times per year and the party vibes really make it feel like a special reunion.

We lined up and the gates opened! The mainstage was absolutely gorgeous, combining some of the elements they've used over the last 20 years of Ultra.

The Megastructure saw an upgrade in 2018, with the traditional overhanging LED panels switched up to a "vortex" look that blew my mind!

The techno-heads could be found at the Arcadia Spider, which is one of the coolest things you will ever witness in your life. The DJ is stationed in the spider's "body" with performers and effects descending from the arms hanging over the massive crowd.

The live stage was pretty much the same as always, but you don't need much production when you have mesmerizing acts like Empire of The Sun, Fischerspooner and Virtual Self wowing the crowd with their shows.

Even the WorldWide Stage saw an upgrade with the addition of overhanging LED panels replacing the traditional raver-chandeliers of weird space shapes that have hung from the top of the arch in years past.

The big story everybody was talking about was the special mystery guest that Ultra had been hyping for months. People had taken all kinds of guesses on who it might be. Many thought it would be something fairly basic like Deadmau5 or Martin Garrix (considering he won top DJ honors and wasn't on the lineup yet). The more laughable guesses were reunions from Daft Punk or.....Swedish House Mafia (my favorite act of all time)?!

These 2 possibilities were the only ones that really lived up to the "expect the unexpected hype", but I found myself not being able to believe that either one could happen. I promised myself I wouldn't get my expectations up until anything was confirmed.

In the meantime, we saw some seriously epic sets on day 1. The biggest surprise was Steve Aoki. I gave up on Steve Aoki a long time ago when he started playing more hip-hop in his sets than progressive house. Tim & I were passing by the mainstage as he started up and ended up sticking around for the entire thing. He played classic anthems, new bangers and even refrained from throwing cake. It seemed like a new Steve Aoki that was bringing back the energy that elevated dance music back in 2012-2013. More on this later....

As day 1 started to wrap up, the final mainstage act was Axwell/\Ingrosso. Considering this is 2/3 of Swedish House Mafia, people were prepared to see a possible reunion at their set. The crowds started to amass around the main stage. Murmurs of expectations from people thinking something epic was about to happen could be heard around Tim & I as we stood there in anticipation.

The lights went down....and nothing happened.

In fact, Axwell /\ Ingrosso appeared to fall flat with what sounded like an extremely boring set. But as I sat there for 30 minutes, I realized something. They had not played a single Swedish House Mafia song. This was strange, considering in the 5+ times I've seen A/\I they always include a hefty chunk of Swedish House Mafia tracks. I realized that something was definitely up....the only reason they would refrain from playing SHM content would be if they had plans to use them later, right?? Then, they ended the set with this mindfuck of a teaser:

We left Bayfront Park a little early, grabbed an Uber and headed back over to the RC Cola Bottling Plant for the Dim Mak Records party. We walked in as Dada Life was getting started and THAT SHIT WAS BANANAS! We've been huge Dada Life fans since we saw them for the first time in Miami back in 2015. Their shows are always a mind-blowing experience and this set in particular was fantastic. Since Olle (1/2 of the duo) no longer tours due to health issues, this was our first time seeing Stefan play solo. He still has as much energy as Dada does with both members on-stage and the new tracks he dropped are soooooo good! I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the release date on the new album just for this "Fuck you days of the week" song.

(Special thanks to Banana/Dada Land passport holder Rebecca Hayes for the video!)

Carnage was up next and dropped some of the gnarliest hardstyle I've ever heard in my life. It's safe to say he scared the shit out of all the hip-hop fans who came to the show just to see Designer. It was absolutely fantastic. Aoki closed things up and once again dropped an epic set! He along with a handful of other DJs who rose to the top between 2012-2014 seem to be on a pattern of returning to their progressive house roots. Let's hope this pattern continues onto the rest of the 2018 festival season!!!

ULTRA DAY 2:

We decided to have "sleep-in Saturday" and not rush to get to the venue too early on day 2.

As we walked around South Beach to get coffee + breakfast, Swedish House Mafia imagery started popping up on the streets of Miami. Rumors began to swirl of Axwell/\Ingrosso purposely throwing their Friday night set in preparation to reunite with Steve Angello on Sunday night's mystery closing set. Nothing was official at this point, so we tried our best not to get our hopes up on the history-making event that might be happening at Ultra 2018.

We stepped inside the Ultra gates a little after 5:00pm to see an unbelievable set from Jauz and an epic sunset throwdown from the king himself, Tiesto. We bounced around to different stages and couldn't resist closing out day 2 with an insane experience in the front row for Carl Cox. Never in my life have I ever felt bass so heavy that it literally rattles my insides!!!

ULTRA DAY 3:

The sun rose on Miami for day 3 and we made it inside Ultra a little early (1:30pm). This was by far the hottest day of the weekend and we quickly realized why we never seem to rush to get to the venue before sunset. We took it easy, relaxing in the shade and under the cooler-confines of the megastructure for an unbelievable set from Andrew Rayel. We dipped into The Crystal Method's hour long performance for a bit and caught the tail-end of Grandtheft's WorldWide Stage set. He closed with this track, which is now one of my favorite songs from the weekend:

At some point in the afternoon, social media had been blowing up with confirmations that Swedish House Mafia would be closing out the festival. My heart was seriously racing the entire day and I couldn't care less who we saw until it was time to make our way to the main stage for the main event.

En route, Tim suggested we check out Infected Mushroom...and they were fucking fantastic! I've never seen such a perfectly executed hybrid of metal & dubstep performed by a live band. Tim almost didn't want to leave, but I was somehow able to pry him away to catch the end of David Guetta's set on the mainstage that would segway into the probable Swedish House Mafia reunion.

As Guetta wrapped up, the mob scene began during the 45 minute intermission. Tim & I were smart enough to get there early and scoot our way towards the front of the crowd without any obnoxious pushing and shoving. Sidenote: If you show up to an artist's set 2 minutes before it starts (or even worse, after they begin) and shove your way to the front, you are an asshole and I promise I will not let you pass by once you get to my spot. If you love an artist so much, show some dedication and get there early or be prepared to sit in the back. The anticipation built and promptly at 10pm, the lights went down. Everybody's phones went up and the intro started. After a few minutes of buildup, the three figures of Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello appeared on an elevated platform as the synth from "Miami2Ibiza" blared over the crowd!

The first 30 minutes didn't contain as much familiar material as everybody expected, which led to an exodus of "fans" that couldn't hang. 30 minutes in, they dropped "Antidote" and all bets were off for the rest of the set. The final half contained all of the tracks people were waiting for. "Save The World", "Don't You Worry Child" and an encore mash-up of "One" with Axwell /\ Ingrosso's banger "Dream Bigger".

As the fireworks launched, we heard Axwell scream "IT'S SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA FOR LIFE THIS TIME!!", indicating that the history we just witnessed is only the tip of the iceberg of things to come for SHM.

As people took their final photos and gave their final goodbyes to ravers/friends they had met over the weekend, everybody realized that this once-in-a-lifetime experience was coming to a close. But while Ultra had ended, the beginning of festival season has just begun.

If the rest of 2018 is anything like this week's kick-off, we are all in for one unforgettable year of dance music! SEE YOU GUYS AT EDC VEGAS!