North Coast Music Festival - Day 2

After doing a bit of shopping at Mitsuwa, I headed back to Union Park for Day 2 of North Coast. I arrived around 2pm and headed over to the Red Bull stage for Felix Cartal.

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He performed a great set to start the day. Housey with some Electro. An amazing beat with ripe sound. A perfect build up to Zeds Dead, who performed next.

I'm not a fan of dubstep at all, but there is some I like, and Zeds Dead fall into that category. They don't stick with the cookie cutter warble waaahhh. They iterate on that, and keep a coherent beat. It's actually danceable! Maybe that's because they mix in a fair amount of Electro House behind their songs, along with some Drum & Bass. They threw in Skrillex - Reptile Theme near the end of their set. And ended with a brand new unreleased track. Fun stuff. :)

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Here's some video of Zeds Dead : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoSMovRLAiQ

I wandered around a bit afterward, and came back to Big Gigantic. These guys are a live electronica band. They play drums and saxophone over a pre-recorded beat, and have a very unique sound. Some songs are dubsteppy, and others are more dancey. It's a very 80s/90s feel. I like it.

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Next up, I went over to the Groupon Stage for Future Rock. These guys are also a live. They play synths, guitar and drums. Their sound is very retro, but they follow a very modern dancey beat. Very spacey and energetic. Great Stuff.

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Here's some video of Future Rock : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCldbwl6jJ0

They finished up around 6:30, so I started looking for some food. The festival grounds are lined with several food tents from local restaurants and bars. I had some egg rolls, and fish and chips. Delicious and fatty fried foods. Perfect for filling the stomach.

Carl Cox

Carl Cox was pretty damn awesome. :). You don't really hear his name much these days, but he's been around since the beginning. Along with Paul Oakenfold, Sasha and John Digweed. They built the English dance scene in the 90s. This is my second time seeing him and it's been almost 10 years. The first time was for his Global CD tour in 2002.

It's interesting to see how he's evolved. He was pretty much straight House back in the day, which is all I heard from the clubs. As people ages and tastes changed, the pure House sound has become somewhat niche, and I never hear of it anymore. It seems that Carl Cox has evolved passed that and has become a renaissance man.

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His set tonight was genre breaking. While his set was penned in an overall Housey tone, he threw in some Techno and Trance to bring everyone up to speed with the best that is out there. He played Maxime Dangles - Dhiaiz!! While it was all over the place, it was cohesive. It made sense, and worked well. It was fantastic. :)

I captured the whole set on video: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB2AAA3FD4493EAC1

While James Zabiela rocked my world yesterday, Carl Cox surprised and delighted me. These 2 guys are the clear highlight of North Coast for me. I almost regret not going to his after party at The Mid. But his was one of the first to sell out, so that club will be a crowded mess. And it's usually that way on regular nights, so I think I'm better off heading off to Vision for Andy Moor.

Fatboy Slim & STS9

Ending the night at the festival was Fatboy Slim headlining. Unfortunately, he didn't really do anything for me. Carl Cox completely blew me away, and anything else that followed needed to go further.

Unfortunately, I have not followed Fatboy Slim's music what so ever. I know Star 69, but that's about it. I can't really groove to his sound. I listened to his promo mix for the Big Beach Festival in Tokyo earlier his year, and it didn't really speak to me, so I figured this performance would end up the same way.

It was really more of a concert anyway, rather than a DJ set, or even a festival DJ set at that. But that crowd went absolutely nuts, and that's awesome. It's good to see a legend of electronic music get the respect he deserves.

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I took off a little early and listened to STS9 for a little while, but they didn't really grab me either. Oh well...

Andy Moor @ Vision

Five was able to join me for Saturday night. He missed his chance to get cheap tickets for North Coast. But Andy Moor for $10? Hell yeah.

For the first time, We took the train into town rather than spend $20 or $30 on parking. SO MUCH CHEAPER. $2.75 train in town, $15 cab back to the car. If we planned it better, we could've taken the train back. This is my plan next time.

Anyway, we arrived at Vision around to some lack luster trance openers. They played a few popular anthems, but kept the vibe in control and ready for The main act.

Andy Moor took the stage around 2am, I think. He started off quite solid. I didn't recognize many of the tracks, but it was a solid vibe. He kept the energy up, and never fell into that stereotypical trance pattern.

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About an hour in, things began to change. It was at the point he dropped Above & Beyond - Sun & Moon. While it's not really my favorite song, it is the type of song that EVERYONE knows. The entire crowd erupted in song and dance. The track that followed set the tone for the rest of the night. Raw and powerful. I should have recorded it, so I could ID it later. It rocked my world.

For the next two hours, he pulled out some mighty bangers. I'm usually more a fan of uplifting, melodic trance, but this was special. Five was on the dancefloor almost the whole night, makin new friends.

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We got back to his cousins place around 5:30, and promptly fell asleep.