Movement 2010 – Day 1

This entry covers day one of Movement 2010. I will provide my thoughts on the Made in Detroit Stage, Main Stage, and the Torino Stage, including what I think is the worst stage. Plus I provide a review of the Deep Detroit party.

I arrived at the festival a little before two to check out Patrice Scott’s sound check. I heard about all the complaints in the past about the sound in the underground Made in Detroit stage but at that time of day, it did sound really good; however, the sound in that area deteriorated throughout the day. Once 2:00 came, Patrice proceeded to play a set of nice, hard, driving Deep House. With the people just coming in to fill the festival, the Underground was perfect for dancing. Although I expected something a bit more melodic, the deepness Patrice provided was perfect for a Saturday afternoon. The first sign of sound muddiness came when Nico Marks took over. The sound quality dipped slightly. Nico started combining Classic House records with his keyboard playing; while it was nice, I really wasn’t feeling it enough to stick around consistently.

It was a good time to check out some of the other stages. I dipped in and out of the main stage to groove a little to Mark Ernestus’ Dub set. I also went over to the Beatport stage. While it was crowded, I wasn’t feeling the crowd dynamic or the “Ravey” sounds emanating from the stage. One thing I noticed about the Made in Detroit stage was that there were a lot of teenagers really getting into the sounds. Generally speaking the kids were the ones dancing in the pit while the older folk were grooving on the sidelines looking down at the dancing down in the pit. I came to dance so I was often dancing in the pit whenever I was in the area. Quite a few dance circles formed throughout the day. At the Beatport stage while there was definitely some kids, there were also quite a few older ravers/ex-ravers hanging around the stage. However, while the Made in Detroit stage was made for dancing, the Beatport stage was situated more for watching the DJs rather than dancing to them. The “DJ as a Rock Star” paradigm was definitely in affect at the Beatport stage. That probably made sense since that was the stage where they have placed the big names from the international circuit. For me, the Beatport stage was a good place to take a breather and hang out with friends rather than a place to enjoy and to dance to the music.

Headed back to the Made in Detroit stage and caught the beginning of Kyle Hall’s set. Kyle has definitely improved from when I heard him last year at The Yard. He knows how to mix the past and the present together in a compelling manner. However, the sound situation in the underground was definitely deteriorating at that point. I headed over to the Main Stage for a bit and caught Woody McBride. To me, he was the surprise of the weekend. Before this weekend I have never heard of Woody McBride and if you got a profile of the type of Dance Music I like, the music Woody plays would not fit that bill. The man plays, high energy, almost “Trancey” Techno and I was really feeling it. As someone who likes things a bit deeper, I was surprised at how well I responded to Woody McBride. I would definitely check him out if he comes to New York, depending on the venue he’s booked to play at.

Back to the Detroit stage for Rick Wilhite and while played some nice classic jams like Dancer by Gino Socco, I felt he was a bit inconsistent musically and his set didn’t flow as smoothly as it could of. Plus the sound was shot at that point. I went over to the Torino stage for Kirk Degiorgio who played some balls to the wall Techno. I loved it, probably one of my highlights in terms of dancing. Degiorgio’s set was criminally under-attended. People complain that the Made in Detroit stage is the worst stage to play at but I honestly think that honor belonged to the Torino stage. As you approach most of the stages you hear what is being played on the stage at the moment. The Torino stage is located to the right of the entrance to Hart Plaza. Ideally, the Torino stage should provide your first impression of the music of Movement, unfortunately what is being played at the stage is overpowered by loud, obnoxious video game Trance music emanating from the Playstation booth. I understand that Playstation is a sponsor but do they have to have a booth with music loud enough to overpower the music coming from one of the stages. I think there is something very wrong with that. At least the Detroit artists in the Made in Detroit did not get overpowered by the noise from the Playstation booth. After that the group I was with decided to go to dinner and we missed the rest of the night’s festivities at Hart Plaza.

After dinner and a misadventure involving finding beer in Detroit at night (unlike New York, grocery stores do not sell beer), we headed down to the Deep Detroit party with Kai Alce, Larry Heard, and Theo Parrish. The Deep Detroit party was a nice change of pace because most of what I heard throughout most of the day was hard, driving, banging Techno with some little breaks between. By that point I was ready to hear some Soulful Deep House. For a variety of reasons, including crowd dynamics since the dance floor was dominated by teenage ravers, even DJs known for playing Deep House was playing relatively hard, so it was a relief to have the BPM’s slow down, the music more melodic, and have songs to sing along to.

The party was held in a café/performance space. Early in the night Larry and Kai traded off every half-hour or so. Larry played some nice cuts but it was Kai Alce who was the star of the night. He kept that party going with a combination of Soulful Vocal House and Dance Classics, along with some Acid (maybe it was Larry who was playing the Acid, it is all a blur at this point). Whoever was playing at what point that person had me dancing hard. Theo Parrish came on around 3:15 and while I usually enjoy Theo, this was probably the weakest set I’ve ever heard from him. It was lacking something. I also felt that he was milking James Brown’s Doin’ It to Death a bit too much. It didn’t help that he followed it with another James Brown song. The set was a little too linear for a Theo Parrish set. I was getting a bit tired so I grabbed a Gatorade and sat outside for a while. The cops came and told everyone to leave the sidewalk since there were a lot of people in front of the venue. People tried to go back into the club but only some made it back in before the cops stopped people from going back in. Despite all this the cops did not shut the party down. The party went another 30-45 minutes before it ended around 4:30. We hung outside the venue for a few minutes. Theo walked out the venue like the conquering hero. It was an excellent party but it was time to walk back to the hotel and get a little bit of rest.

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