Synchronicity at the Ultra Fest

Here's a long submission on the recent Ultra Music Festival from orange peel moses, who performed at the festival as part of dance music act Friends in Stereo (FiS). Reprinted with permission from Image Magazine.

No one can argue that prolonged sleep deprivation isn’t a mind-altering state. After an amazing week at the Winter Music Conference (a whole other story), we arrived at Bicentennial Park in Miami (Ultra’s venue) by three on Friday. Outside the credentials tent, we met our Ultra boss Andy, a stilt walker from Ibiza (Disneyland for dance music fans), perched on a golf cart with his buddy Ed, a rigger who’d both designed and built most of the stages. They promptly whisked us away with our costume cases and army duffles to an RV parked backstage. The RV would serve as a dressing room for stilt walkers and dancers for the next two days.

On entering the RV, I immediately recognized Jodie, another Ibiza-based stilt walker who I’d met the previous year at the airport. Completely and utterly exhausted, she had passed out waiting to board the plane but I’d roused her from slumber in the nick of time. Apparently she would’ve missed a lunar eclipse if it weren’t for my semi-anonymous Good Samaritan deed. Talk about fate. Synchronicity at its finest.

As some of the first performers to arrive, we got a jump start on hair and makeup in the calm before the approaching go-go dancer storm. Given my obvious shortage in the follicle department, I carved an orange peel sculpture for Jennifer, the head dancer, to bide my time till Ash and Cam applied my war paint. “Orange Slice” is what Jennifer called me. Several hours later, the three of us took a debut stroll around the festival grounds in full costume. The photo requests never let up from that point on. Now I know what it’s like to be a rock star perpetually stalked by paparazzi. It seemed for a spell we were more popular than that first afternoon’s main stage acts, Shiny Toy Guns and The Brazilian Girls.

Within no time, Reg and Colin showed up with our new FiS intern Cherry D in tow. Talk about a wing and a prayer. Cherry lucked out on a free standby flight through a friend’s airline employee parent, then scored a photo pass at the credentials tent. Minus cab fare, it hadn’t cost her a dime to be backstage at Ultra in Miami. We should’ve all taken turns pinching her.

Although The Cure’s Robert Smith is notoriously introverted and shy, we had the distinct pleasure of waving hello to him and his band mates as they sped by on their golf cart. Did I neglect to mention The Cure was headlining Friday night? My apologies, it must’ve slipped my mind. Speaking of golf carts, it was around this time that I began to wonder where the rigger Ed had disappeared to. He had been waiting on the dancers hand and foot all day but was suddenly nowhere to be seen. Later, I learned that he’d splashed mud on a couple of cops with his golf cart. Because he hadn’t stopped to apologize, they’d kicked him out of the event for the day. Imagine having built multiple stages for a “ridonkulous” festival and then being ejected for splashing someone with dirty water.

After being somewhat under-utilized all day due to a phenomenon known as “DJ Ego” (many DJs won’t allow dancers on stage during their sets, as it takes the focus away from their ever-so-captivating knob-twiddling and Jesus posing), we were all finally prepping for our glorious main stage debut with Fedde Le Grand from Detroit. Everyone was still running behind schedule because of an earlier rain shower, though, so we ended up being on call side stage for quite awhile. As the minutes ticked away, I got more and more nervous that I would have to choose between stilt-walking in front of the main stage and singing with Friends in Stereo all the way across the festival grounds at the Westword-affiliated New Times stage.

Overly ambitious as usual, I was bound and determined to accomplish both. Finally, our sanctioned window of opportunity presented itself. Twenty dancers and three stilt walkers flooded both the main stage and proximate barricaded pit with stockpiled energy and motion. Unfortunately, I had neglected to charge my dad’s video camera battery. Fortunately a feature film-caliber camera mounted on a crane recorded the entire spectacle for Ultra’s proposed future global broadcast. When my partners departed for the New Times stage, though, I started to panic a tad. Twenty to thirty minutes later, Fedde’s set came to a close as DJ Ego himself, Tiesto, was waiting in the wings.

I quickly snagged my wireless mic from the RV and began ambling across the festival grounds, still on stilts, towards the New Times tent. Upon arrival, I removed the stilts and attempted to catch my breath. I was pleasantly surprised to find Boris, a video mixing friend from The People’s Republic of Boulder, teaching Cherry D. how to operate his camera. Small world. Would our luck ever cease? Apparently not. Mile high club shutterbug Michael Albert was on hand to shoot stills as well. The planet got even smaller mere minutes later when, immediately following my introduction and pep talk, an audience member claimed to be an acquaintance of my first love from Houston, Alyssa Webb. By that point, the synchronicities had ceased to surprise me. All I could do was chuckle at their increasing frequency.

The moment of truth was upon us. Colin and Reg fired up the laptop, donned their Mac monitor helmets and cued up “Mini Skirts.” I removed the already sound-checked mic from its holster and explained to the crowd that we had something a little different in store. Still in my stilt pants, I started six-stepping like a man possessed. Fresh from the main stage across the park, Ashley and Camala materialized to join me. Those in attendance were practically speechless.

Tiny tributaries of makeup and perspiration stung my eyes. Thankfully I didn’t really need to see to sing. As the beat for “Nocturnal Creatures” crept into the mix, I gripped the mic and listened attentively for my cue: “We are nocturnal creatures, we come out at night. It doesn’t make us bad people, we’re just allergic to the light.” Three times for the chorus. Then the peak: “When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, we nocturnal creatures rise from our slumber. When the sun goes down.…”

Next thing we knew, our time was up. After passing out some myspace cards and collecting our things, we caught a ride back to our hotel on the Santa Maria. Later, while inflating our air mattress in the hallway, a very cute neighbor wondered aloud whether nitrous was involved. The girl in question practically fell over backwards when Reg suddenly bolted towards her in his underwear.

Saturday morning, we got up and did it all again. Well, not all of it exactly. We didn’t perform music again that night, but we did stilt-walk and dance most of the afternoon until a torrential downpour put a damper on our outdoor activities. Prior to that, though, I met up with jet-setting dancer/Vinyl employee Ms Easy at the Breaks stage for a slew of photo ops and a bit of conversation.

En route back to the RV, a suspension spring in one of my stilts came loose from a slot that had held it in place. I did the smart thing and downsized for the return trip. Better safe than sorry. Nearly back to the backstage entrance, I got a text message from Denver’s DJ Cinful, who it turns out was hanging out on the main stage in an adorable angel costume carefully positioning herself in the vicinity of headlining DJs for photo ops of her own.

Even under the cover of the garbage bags, Digweed’s mixer had to be replaced mid-set when it shorted out in the rain. I kicked it with Cinful for a bit, eventually finding shelter from the rain in the RV, where she got off shooting close-ups of half naked dancers’ asses. I’m not ashamed to admit I was thoroughly entertained as well.

Meanwhile, under full cover of the house tent halfway across the park, Ashley and Camala worked it center stage for nearly an hour and a half to the tune of Fatboy Slim’s supposedly killer set. News flash: a full hour and a half of aerobic exercise is a pretty intense experience for any body, no matter what their particular fitness level.

Rabbit in the Moon was easily the most widely anticipated main stage act of the day. Still utterly exhausted from our breakneck schedule, I missed many of Bunny’s stunts for the irresistible comfort of the RV’s couch. Colin claims Bunny sang a cover of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” but I wasn’t convinced it wasn’t merely a remix of the original being spun by Monk, Rabbit in the Moon’s resident DJ. Apparently one of the most memorable segments involved a group of men decked out like DEA agents or a SWAT team. At that point for me, though, all I could think about was sleep.