FIELD DAY 07

Yet another year has passed and for the 4th(?) time I've ventured to Fuzzy's annual Field Day "festival". Each year has been a landmark event, however with the ever growing popularity of the "Dance Music" genre, this year was a bit of a disappointment for me...

I started out the day by heading off to The Marriott in Circular Quay to meet up with Ed, Sam Volker, Little Sammy and Joel, and ended up finding them with a guy called Chris having a cheeky beverage.

From there we wandered up to 'The Domain' for the main event via Martin Place, where we started to see the wierd and wonderfully dressed for the occasion. Those that particularly caught the eye were a bunch of young girls with rainbow kneepads and rackets.

Upon a very quick and easy entry, comprising of only an ID check, quick scan and slapping a band on the right arm, I headed in to the main stage to witness perhaps my most enjoyable set of the day with Lamanex (Illya and Toby Neal). The thing that stood out with their set was that they dared to play something new and different as opposed to most of the other DJs I heard throughout the day. That and the fact that I actually had space to dance at the time, which is a very very important factor in my enjoyment levels... So whilst Lamanex played I danced and about 60% of those on the dance floor and 10% of those not there took notice.

I saw Tiff and had a small boogy with her which was fun. As 3:30 approached and Lamanex were due to wrap up to make way for Crazy Penis to play live the dancefloor started filling up with people who were more inclined to stand around as opposed to dancing and this got to me... Crazy Penis started off slow and seemed to remain that way for the majority of their set. They played a lot of more well known stuff off of their several albums, tunes that I recognised were Lady T (from A Night on Earth), There's a Better Place and You Started Something (from The Wicked Is Music).

Mylo was the next to play on the mainstage and he played a big festival set, full of tracks that have been played plenty of times before, almost even played out. Veigli, Claire and their crew joined ours and we caught up, mingled and danced a little. Biggest reaction I think was when he played his remix of Freeform Five's No More Conversations absolutely everyone went crazy! Sad thing is that this track has been grabbing reactions at least since March last year. I remember when Morillo dropped it at Future Music Festival and it took the (almost asleep) crowd by storm then as well.

After much frustration with the crowd we wandered off to stroll around The Domain, running into Elise on the way and grabbing some photos. It was during this time as well that I ran into Laura from work and also Tiff again, so it was nice to see them there as well.

Kaskade followed on from Mylo and again started slowly So slowly in fact that our little group went for a wander all the way back to The Marriott to get themselves checked in and refresh. As we were dwindling our way back however, Kaskade seemed to pump out some really nice tracks that made us regret taking the passout.

When we made it back to Field Day the security check seemed stricter than when we first went in. I think my Band got checked at least 4 times on entry if not more, there must be some real scammers around, and plenty of them. John Wall and Tim Sea had managed to jump up onto the main stage and dabble between really really commercial tracks and really really "underground" unknown tracks with bad mixing between, which led us to head to the Breaks stage to see if it was doing any better, which it certainly was. The MC who was on the mic and he was revving the crowd up like nothing. I think one of the lines he used was "How about this great weather? It's a good thing we all dumped our pills early!!"

The Freestylers were the next act that I saw and these guys, despite the 10 minutes to get them ready and going tore the proverbial roof off the place with the stuff they played. The thing about the Breaks stage, as opposed to the Main Stage was that they are performers and they get really into it and have a prescence. About 20 minutes into The Freestylers set, it started raining and then began to pour down, and majority of the people did not care at all, it was fantastic!!

After The Freestylers it was back to the main stage where Martin Solvieg was dumping out the commercial cheese with a grater. Crowd seemed up for it, but I most certainly wasn't. It got to the point where some guy wandered in to where we were, stopped and proceeded to vomit water and BANG, I'd had enough of the crowd and wandered out to the footpath and just stood there listening to the tracks. Eventually my mood lightened a little and I started to dance again, as I tend to do every year, on the footpath, generating plenty of interest by people wandering past.

The party ended and I wandered through the masses of crowd back down to The Marriott, partially in the rain, and then proceeded to head home. Next Field Day will really need to step it up a big notch if it's going to attract me next time. Who knows, by then there could be something bigger and better happening on New Years Day!!