I had a great time at the Days Like This! Festival at the Entertainment Quarter on January 4. The event doesn’t have the same pressure as a New Year’s Eve or NYD event, but close enough that everyone still feels festive. I have to say that the line-up was quite tremendous and much suited to my current taste in music. Before the day, I had been telling people that it was the older clubbers or retired raver‘s festival. The variety of artists and the crowd made it really great compared to some festivals I’ve been to in the last few years. Also, the crap, gurning crowds have been a major factor in why I hardly ever go to music festivals any more.
I most enjoyed Flying Lotus in the Forum (hey airconditioning at a summer festival – different, unusual). It was the cross-over of live techno and instrumental electronic hip hop I’ve been looking for. I also enjoyed briefly seeing DJ Vadim, Recloose, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, A Guy called Gerald, Carl Craig and of course Public Enemy. After all these years PE still have an awesome presence and hearing nearly all of It takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back live was awesome.
The only bad thing about Days Like This! was there was not enough food stalls and there were no pass outs, so you couldn’t go into EQ to get something to eat. Sure I understand that promoters probably have some deal with the stallholders that they are going to have a captive audience but the lines at dinner time had hundreds of people in them. Could do better with the food.
See my Days Like This! photos here
You can read the Disco Dissertation review here
