Day 1 – Saturday
Arrived Saturday morning, stopped off in Ferndale for some lunch and a visit to Mother Fletcher’s for some vintage shopping. Wandered down to the festival late in the afternoon caught up with people, checked out Martyn dropping a nice set skipping all over the place, some of Kyle Hall, Rick Wilhite and Kirk Degiorgio.
The Movement Torino was surprising, sound was decent considering proximity to the main stage. Shame the lineup really didn’t interest me much. Ducked out for dinner at Roast and back to the festival for Plastikman. The light show was spectacular, the music left me feeling indifferent as did the 808 rawkout at the end.
Finished the night at the NDATL Deep Detroit party. Great lineup with Larry Heard, Kai Alce and Theo Parrish. Caught the end of Larry Heard, Kai Alce dropped some crazy deep business before playing a great disco set. Theo absolutely killed it. Had a fantastic night as we had last year, crowded dance floor but no milling about in mezzanine this year. Silly amount of name dropping to be had, name any Detroit producer who was in town for the weekend and there’s a good chance they passed through.
Day 2 – Sunday
Started with a healthy amount of protein at Slows BarBQ decent feed, excellent ribs and waffle fries. Unfortunately it meant missing Recloose, but you gotta eat. Wandered around the abandoned Michigan Central Depot, what an amazing building with great architectural details. Met a very zealous local named Rick who filled us in on some history and offered to take us through the abandoned building. We didn’t take up the offer though others did. We followed this with some more abandoned building around Bush Park. So strange to see these abandoned buildings next to those which were restored and inhabited.
Stopped in at the festival in the afternoon for Shake’s set. Started with Cooly G’s Narst and went all over the place from there, great set. Rolando played a banging and funky set after, despite a munter jumping up on stage and landing on one of the turntables (he got chased out of the underground but security were so slow to react). Rob Hood’s set was a little disappointing. It was relentlessly hard and despite all the equipment infront of him lacked dynamism.
Highlight of the weekend without doubt was the Soul Skate party a good drive out. Lots of locals getting their skate on. Again a huge turnout from local producers even better seeing them get their skates on. Loads of awesome moves out there I can’t even begin to explain.
We had to dash earlyish and headed to No Way Back at the Bohemian National Home. Caught the end of Serge’s set and BMG moving through some disco and techno also a lot of fun.
Day 3 – Monday
Late start with a trip out to Submerge, picked up a couple of records but highlight (maybe of the weekend) was Bridgette Banks taking my details and doing a double take recognising me as an old mail order customer. They’ve shipped to me in 3 continents now so great to meet some people behind the operation. We stopped in on another vintage store whilst the clothes were too rock n roll and not of any real interest the owner was a real character, even giving us palm readings.
A break in the rain for Moritz Von Oswald Trio playing a cruisey afternoon set until some technical issues interrupted the flow. They recovered nicely though lost Carl Craig in the process. There wasn’t a great deal on in the afternoon we were interested in so we took off for a bite and checked out the Heidelberg project. Shame it was raining as we didn’t get to wander around as much as we’d have liked.
We got back to catch most of Kenny Larkin’s set, who also seemed plagued by a technical issue and ended finishing his live set playing other peoples tracks from CD. It was a recurring issue throughout the weekend. Model 500 were probably the main reason we were in Detroit, and the Star Trek clad band made their way through the back catalogue of hits. The crowd were really into it though the rap interlude didn’t do much for me.
We finished the night with DJ Harvey who really started getting his groove on rocking some great italo and disco until the party got shut down by the police. I still don’t understand why as the place was pretty much in the middle of nowhere so it couldn’t have been noise complaints from residents. Such a shame it was shaping up to be a good night! We called it a day despite offers to get driven to another party.
Overall a great weekend, knowing more people this year and having a better feel for the lay of the land helped. It’s an odd time to be there and the festival may be a draw for many the fun times start after Hart Plaza closes every night. We met loads of local characters, from the cab drivers to dj’s/producers I really admire. It was surreal at times. I felt indifferent about the festival itself, and enough others have said their pieces about the logistics, sound and lineup. Driving around Bush Park you saw the juxtaposition which no doubt makes the city what it is.
