I went down to Miami this weekend for a big electronic music festival. I heard they had something like sixty thousand people there. The City of Miami, of course, did not arrange for any extra public transportation whatsoever. I saw a lot of shows, got sunburned, drank not enough (expensive) water, and damaged my hearing to a degree I am actually concerned about.

Miami itself is basically a resort. You lounge around in a Corona commercial all day and then party all night. Of course, we couldn't party all night, because we had already spent all day at the festival and were exhausted. It's a nice place to visit but I couldn't live there.

Here is what I saw, in no particular order:

Justice

Justice put on a good show. It wasn't nearly as good as when I saw them at Terminal 5, but I think that's because Terminal 5 was a smaller, enclosed venue, and this was in front of a big stage in a park. (My enjoyment of a concert is inversely proportional to the amount of personal space everyone has at it.) If you've never seen Justice, I highly recommend doing so, but I'm not going to go out of my way to see them again. D.A.N.C.E and We Are Your Friends are amazing songs the first time you hear them live, and pretty good the second, but not anything special, really.

Tiesto

I could be Tiesto. I could write a goddamn Tiesto VST. Just give it a few four-on-the-floors, and a collection of hooks. It will play one of the drum lines, replace it with the first hook, and then play them together. Repeat until there are no more hooks and you've got a Tiesto set. And it's not like he has an amazing stage presence or anything; he stands behind a desk and twiddles knobs and looks up and smiles occasionally.

Union Jack

This was billed as Union Jack's exclusive seven-year-reunion show, and it would have made the entire weekend worth it if it hadn't been already. Seeing them live confirmed what I've suspected for awhile now: a lot of the music I really, really like was being created when I was watching Saturday morning cartoons, and is over now. They'll never play anywhere again (their set was them just playing through their one album, and while it was fantastic, it was pretty clear they were doing it because they thought it was fun, not because they had some grand musical vision they needed to express.) No one like them will ever play anywhere again. This, for me, was probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I'm so glad I saw it. It was strange seeing how small of a crowd they drew when they seemed so much better than the more modern trance DJs that were playing.

Sander van Doom

plays boring music, except for this one song that is apparently a Fatboy Slim B-side.

Ferry Corsten

Ferry Corsten picked good tracks, and he didn't use the Tiesto plugin to mix, but he's got some horrible medical condition that makes his breakdowns suck. It's not that they're long - long breakdowns can work - it's that he's constantly trying to trick the audience by adding things like builds that don't go anywhere and my personal favorite, the isolated kick hit on the downbeat that sounds exactly like a drop. And you know what? After two or three of these, the audience stops buying it, which means that when the actual drop comes, nobody does anything until the second or third beat. Since having the whole crowd hit a drop simultaneously is amazing, I'm not sure the motivation here, but I guess that's why I'm not a famous international DJ.

Armin van Buuren

Ferry Corsten without the breakdown problem. He also seemed to have some humility, which was in short supply on the main stage. He actually bowed. Multiple times. It was a far better set than I expected, and I would recommend catching Armin if you can.

Underworld

Underworld was fantastic. I'm not sure what to say that being a crowd of tens of thousands of people outside in a Miami after the sun's gone down listening to "Beatiful Breakdown" performed live is a pretty cool experience. Also, they were running no fewer than six copies of Ableton Live on separate computers simultaneously during their set, and I'm a nerd, so I liked that.

Paul van Dyk

Also better than I expected. Despite being "just a DJ" he had a couple of other people performing with him: a drummer playing on top of his drum machines (to make the sounds more "real," I guess), a guy whose only job was apparently to do the bassline, and a guitarist I could never hear. I'm not sure if I dig the drummer thing, and the bassline guy kept fucking up. It was pretty funny. At one point his fuckups almost derailed the entire set (when he and Paul van Dyk couldn't resynchronize right). What made the set good, though, despite Paul van Dyk using the Tiesto plugin a lot, was that throughout the fuckups he was just laughing and having fun. Seeing a performer actually perform is great (I say this as a performer), but you don't get to see it much at these shows. It's nice to know that even absurdly famous DJs still fuck up. The visuals for his set were also perfectly synchronized with his music (he had some of his music videos in there), which means that he actually must have rehearsed it with the VJ, which also is so rare as to be pretty much nonexistent. I appreciate that. My main criticism is this: Paul van Dyk, you've made a name for yourself and made some money. I think it's time you sprung for a second synthesizer; I think you've gotten all you can out of this one. (Although he actually plays the thing, rather than pre-recording loops, which is another thing I appreciate.)

Moby

I've always felt that Moby's discography didn't quite live up to all the accolades and praise he's received. I now know why that is. That little vegan man can move a floor like nothing I've ever seen before. I have no words; everyone see Moby if you can. I even got to see Go live, which was pretty surreal; Moby was one of the first artists I was getting into when I realized I liked electronic music, and Go was the first of his songs that I "noticed." If you'd told me that I'd be seeing that song live six years later I don't know what I would have thought.

Mar-T

I don't know anything about this guy other than that I wandered into his set for a few minutes and it was really good.

The Crystal Method

They were okay, but I think I like their recorded stuff better. It was really cool, though, when the crowd went absolutely nuts after hearing just that one little sample from Busy Child because they all knew what was coming. What was most disappointing about their set was that I missed Deadmau5 to see it and Deadmau5 was apparently better.

BT

BT is an amazing composer and producer. BT is abysmal live. He didn't DJ or mix or anything; he prerecorded a backing track and then had a drummer pretend to play it (I think this is what was going on; I can't figure out why there would be a drummer without any of his mics turned on otherwise.) He didn't even play a synthesizer or anything; I think he had his MIDI notes pre-programmed and he just turned filter knobs. He sang for a few tracks, but the sound was so bad I couldn't hear him (this wasn't necessarily his fault.) I actually up and left during "Dreaming," when the chick that may or may not have been Kirsty Hawkshaw was singing the vocal line over an enormous rave kick (and being completely drowned out by it). At least he was having fun.

Rabbit In The Moon

is completely insane.

Hybrid

Hybrid was really, really good (far better than their recorded stuff) but I was too goddamn exhausted to really appreciate it or pay enough attention to describe it in any more detail.

I didn't see Deadmau5 or MSTRKRFT, which I'm bummed about. There were also like ten times this many artists at the festival, but I can't watch five stages at once.

And now, a special feature:

A Guide to Electronic Music Concertgoers

Large Shirtless Man

There are only three rules for being a large shirtless man. One: be large. Two: do not wear a shirt. Three: under absolutely no circumstances dance. The recommended activity for a large shirtless men is to talk to someone standing next you; other options are pointing a finger in the air, or occasionally tapping your foot or nodding your head (but nothing else!) Do not think this prohibition against dancing means you shouldn't stand wherever you want; being near the front just means you have more people to talk to. If I have any large shirtless men reading this, I have a favor to ask: at your next meeting, can you raise a motion that large shirtless men everywhere avoid standing in front of me? Thanks.

Small Shirtless Man

The small shirtless man is the counterpart to the large shirtless man, but he fulfills a completely different role. A single small shirtless man poses no problems, but if more than one of them end up in the same place, they start to restrict movement around them. Two makes it difficult, but if three of them congregate it is actually impossible to move past them until they leave or disperse. I've never seen four together; I think the concert would just stop if it ever happened. If you're going on vacation and want to make sure your house doesn't get robbed, just leave three or four small shirtless men on your porch; nothing will be able to get inside.

Candy Ravers

Most strange subpopulations seem less strange when they're in a group. Candy Ravers are the opposite: the more of them there are, the dumber they collectively seem. I think this is because when I see only one I subconsciously convince myself she's being ironic (if there's only one, it's always a she; the males only come out when groups of females have already congregated). When you see four people with glowing pacifiers and stuffed animals leashed to their ankles, though, you have to admit to yourself that they mean business, and their business means dumb.

Guy With Whistle

Yeah, this guy is headlining the largest event that has been held in Miami since the city was created, and the basis of his obscenely successful career is to make music that people want to listen to, but this show needs something he can't provide. Something only you have. This show needs a whistle. This show needs a lot of whistle.

Guy With Airhorn

This is a much rarer variation of the guy with whistle. Instead of a whistle, he has an airhorn. Now, this might seem significantly more irritating, but guy with airhorn is actually tolerable. You see, while his "instrument" is far, far louder than a whistle, he can only use it so many times before it runs out, and it's so incredibly obnoxious that it bugs him too. This means that he's stingy with his airhorning, which I think is something we can all agree on.

Guy Who Is Just Standing There

There are actually three subcategories of guy who is just standing there. And, to be more specific, this isn't anybody who's standing and listening to music; this is the people that have the need to migrate to where everyone else is actually dancing so they can just stand there. Their reasons for this vary; this is why there are subcategories. Also, as a caveat, despite being called "guy who is just standing there," they're not necessarily all guys. Guys who are just standing there because they're recording something are split about 50/50, guys who are just standing there because they're texting their friend are mostly, but not wholly, women, and guys who are just standing there for no goddamn reason are almost exclusively male.

Guy Who Is Just Standing There Because He Is Recording Something

I'm actually a little worried that you guys aren't going to believe that I went to this festival because I didn't take a shitty digital camera video of Tiesto. Or because I didn't take four. You'll sometimes see guy who is just standing there because he is recording something when the stage crew rolls out some sweet new set, but they most often pop up and the beginning of big name acts. For Tiesto's first three songs the front of the floor didn't actually move because everyone had their goddamn cameras out so that they could capture every single second of Tiesto turning knobs on his desk in all its glory. And once you've recorded something, make sure you check it to see if it's good - if it's not, you'd better record again!

Guy Who Is Just Standing There Because He Is Texting His Friend

It's possible that you're responding to a friend who asked you which stage you're at, but it's far more likely that you're haranguing someone who's not even here, or better yet, talking about something completely unrelated to the act you paid two hundred dollars to get a VIP ticket for. You are an idiot. You are a guy who is just standing there because you have to get your text message on.

Guy Who Is Just Standing There For No Goddamn Reason

Look, if you want to enjoy the music without dancing to it, that's perfectly okay, but why would you fight your way to the front to do it? Are all the other people not dancing not good enough for you? You get extra points if you look actively unhappy, like this was assigned to you for homework or something.

Asshole Who "Needs To Get Past Me"

If you tap my shoulder and ask to move past me, I will not care. I will not care because I assume you have a particular destination and a particular reason for needing to be there. If your destination is directly where I was standing before I moved to let you past, and you have no friends right there, and you are taller than me, then you are an asshole. Fuck you.

Standard Bearer

You know, before this weekend, I was underappreciating Mexico. But my entire worldview has been changed thanks to all the people that brought Mexican flags and waved them around constantly. Thank you, Mexican patriots. You've shown me the way.

I feel like I forgot something, but oh well.