36 hours in Paris: Cracki party, Sept 2011

I think my sense of adventure is starting to get the better of me, and probably not in a way that I’ll be happy about in 30 years’ time.  I went to Paris last weekend to see a DJ friend of mine from school, Paulo [Airdrop Records], mix at two events on Saturday night, and it was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had.  Maybe I was still riding the wave of the aftereffects that Creamfields left me with: a love (rather an obsession) for electronic music, but whatever it was, it was worth absolutely every second of the eardrum bursting, sleep depriving experience I had that night. 

The first of Paulo’s two gigs was at the Social Club in Montmartre, which is your typical small electronic club that houses great DJs every night.  Before I go on, I should just say that I am in no way a music expert… but judging the energy of the crowd around me that night, it would take a blind (rather, deaf) person not to see how amazing Paulo’s first set was.  And it was just warm-up for the gig to come… a huge warehouse party put on by Cracki (a French record label) on the outskirts of the city. 

Paulo at Social Club

After Paulo’s gig at Social, (and then after negotiating our ways into cabs and then around to the outskirts) we finally arrived at the warehouse, which had been turned into a sort of wonderland for electronic lovers.  And if that warehouse was Wonderland, then Paulo, Larcier and Marcelus (the DJs who mixed before and after Paulo did), were the mad-hatter orchestrators of the mind-blowing musical adventure that Alice (the audience) found herself lost in.  And no, that’s not an allusion to drug use… the music itself was incredible enough to keep anyone going strong until the late hours of the next morning… They all played amazing sets. At one point during the night, one of Paulo’s friends turned to me and said something that beautifully summed up the way the evening/night/morning/early afternoon went: “Dude, it’s like being obsessed with Christmas and then finding out your best friend IS Father Christmas.”  It was unreal and everyone in the crowd was having the time of their lives as Paulo, and the other DJs, mixed.

Cracki party venue

Paulo was followed by Marcelus [Deeply Rooted House], and I swear the combination of those two DJs makes me wonder how it was possible that I’d never gotten into detroit techno/jacking house music before.  Sure I’d been to a few shows here and there around London and Madrid, but nothing as unbelievable as the Cracki party that night.  

Towards the end of the night, I was introduced to one of the guys who planned the event who, from what I could hear above Marcelus’ ridiculous mixing, told me that the event we were at reminded him of Berlin circa 1990. Granted I was still in diapers and scaring nannies off at that point in my life, but I nodded and told him I agreed anyway, while noting to myself that I was totally born in the wrong place and time.  Well, at least in this time and age where I’m not doing this every night, my hearing has the iota of opportunity to last me 'til I’m 50.  Yea, I was the recipient of quite a few looks and comments that night about my less than trendy ear plugs… (it's ok, I realise I’m not that cool). Anyway, my point is, how I haven't yet been to Berlin, I don't understand. 

Paulo at Cracki

To say the least, Cracki put on a great event that night… and I’d say that this one tops the list of the warehouse parties I’ve been to… mostly because of the amazing music that I heard that night, but also because it was an all-around really well-planned event. (My friends and I were personal fans of the room with walls covered in Nutella…) I will definitely go back to Paris for another Cracki event ANY time… provided, of course, that I can even get a ticket.  This one sold 1500 in less than a week... and there were people desperately searching for tickets up until right before it started.

So, to everyone's absolute dismay, the party came to an end around 7.30, and we all dejectedly creeped out of our Wonderland rabbit hole and back into the Parisian sun... and for us, personally, it was a hard stab of reality, as we realised that we had no way to get back to Paris. 

I won't go into details about how we miraculously made it back to the city that morning, but around 9 am as Paulo and I deafly wandered towards his apartment (walking past and feeling sorry for countless people who were about to start running the marathon that morning), I looked up and saw the sun rising above the Eiffel tower (which thankfully distracted me from of the looks of bewilderment falling upon Paulo and me...) And though my legs were killing me from 12 straight hours of bouncing up and down, my vision still blurred from the smokiness of the venues, and I couldn't hear anything quieter than a large truck engine, I realised that it was a beautiful end to the perfect adventure... and that I, once again, found myself looking half homeless.  Perhaps this is becoming too much of a trend.

the walk home

Anyway, as I am left now with ruined clothes and only the memory of the amazing Cracki party, I can only hope that I'll stop limping soon and that the still un-waning ringing in my ears is indicative of something other than permanent hearing loss… but something tells me otherwise…  My next goal in life now is to see one of these parties put on in Shanghai.  But I suppose I'll have to get there first.

                                         (Footage from a previous Cracki party)

The Art of the English Music Festival

When one thinks of Britain, the words “dreary” and “rain” tend to be the first things to come to mind.  For me, this was certainly reaffirmed as I started packing to go to Creamfields Music Festival in Cheshire… only about 30 minutes before I was due to leave.  Not the brightest of ideas.  Creamfields is a huge electronic music festival held annually, and it attracts over 50,000 people, many of whom camp there for the weekend. Insert “camping” into the “dreary” and “rain” equation. Then insert “50,000 people”. The final outcome?  Mud.  Lots and lots of mud.  It’s a simple equation, really.

As I soon discovered, mastering a festival like Creamfields, and most of the other music festivals that take over Britain during the summer, is an art.  Packing is the first medium upon which this art can be expressed, and it is perhaps the most important one, because how you pack for a music festival ultimately determines your level of enjoyment at said festival.  For example, forgetting your Wellies is something that completely redefines the term “walk of shame”.  Those few poor souls who did indeed neglect to pack their boots experienced that shame firsthand within seconds of arriving at the vast stretch of farmland that was to be their home for the following three days.  But they were eventually spared from the patronizing smirks of their fellow festivalgoers.  After roughly a kilometer of walking through mud (that had the consistency of quicksand, mind you), the festival gods forgave them for their senselessness by providing them with stands that sold Wellies.  And so, they were saved.

English mud at its finest

The next item on the packing list would seem quite obvious to most, but it was effectively neglected by the useless few people who seemed to think that spending 48-plus hours in the rain and mud could be turned into a “sexy” experience.  This item is, of course, warm clothing.  The amount of exposed rear-ends I saw making their way around the festival took me right back to the basements of the steamy (disgusting) frat parties that I frequented way too much in college.  And the fact that these rear-ends belonged to girls who were clearly freezing said rear-ends off… well, let’s just say it was pretty funny.  I personally just don’t understand the point of trying to look like an uglier version of a Playboy bunny when you’re camping out in podunk England anyway.  You’re living knee-deep in mud for three days.  Sexy went out the window the second you bought your tent.

So, the art of packing for any festival can be concluded with one final item (besides the obvious camping gear): toilet paper.  I won’t go into the specifics of why this item is essential for any festival.  Take my word when I say it just is.

Next, we have the art of finding the perfect location and pitching your tent.  My group and I were particularly lucky that we arrived as late as we did, because it was easy to find a low-traffic and less crowded area.  Festivalgoers are noisy, drunk, and insensitive to the few foolish people who actually think it's possible to be able to sleep.  The best solution to this unsolvable problem is to find a space in one of the less-congested camping zones and just hope for the best (I also recommend buying earplugs).  As for pitching the tent… well, don’t do it unless you know how to.  Again, this would seem like a fairly obvious statement, but as I’ve described, common sense seemed to be nowhere in sight all weekend.  As we crawled into our newly pitched tent to avoid the intermittent rain and plan our stage hopping, we watched as three helpless, half-naked girls pitched, un-pitched, and re-pitched their tent over the span of an hour.  We debated going to help them, but it was raining pretty hard, and we were busy enjoying the comfort of our tent that our hard work awarded us.  Well, I have no problem saying that we successfully demonstrated how people are jerks and won’t help you pitch your tent in the rain… so you’d better know how to.

And finally, we have the art of etiquette, something the Brits are supposedly famous for.  If there’s one thing I learned all weekend, it’s that etiquette joined common sense and sexy when they jumped out the window.  While the contents of our tents remained safe, we discovered the hard way that Wellie-theft was not uncommon.  And staying mud-free? Forget about it.  There must be something about the mud and rain that invites people to want to smash their boots in it as much as possible, consequently showering the surrounding people with the thick slop beneath their feet.  Which brings me back to my first point: pack well.

So, to you future festivalgoers, I implore you to heed my above advice.  The creamy fields of Creamfields and the accompanying rain are not exclusive to Creamfields… they extend themselves to all English music festivals.  Novices be warned: the festival gods spare no innocent soul, and while the line-ups of certain festivals are certainly worth it, you can expect to be haunted by the images of mud in all of its glorious and numerous consistencies for the rest of your lives.

Tiesto @ Creamfields 2011