Life Lesson #8 – Don’t put Deadmau5 on a pedestal

For those of you who do not know, Ultra Music Festival (UMF) was in town this past weekend. The festival is a collection of the world’s most prominent electronic musicians and DJs.

I had the luxury of attending said festival and was surrounded by these various talented people who create sounds and music. For me, I can’t get enough of this stuff. When I hear this music I feel a punch of electricity into my heart. My eyes close and my body feels like it has been touched in an exciting way. I feel overcome with bursting energy and cannot help but dance. So that’s what I did, dance my ass off that is. All weekend long.

On Friday, I looked forward to seeing David Guetta and Tiesto. The anthems that David Guetta busted out, the bass and his light show were beyond amazing. I was completely impressed. His stage presence was animated and engaging. He was by far my favorite part of UMF, I give him four fist pumps. Friday night wasn’t very crowded and I could comfortably dance in my little zone to Guetta. I danced the entire time he was on the main stage which is probably why I overheated, got nauseous and left early (See blog # 6 to find out where I went). I never did see Tiesto. Dag.

Saturday was quite an adventure (see blog #7). I got to UMF in time to hear some of Faithless Sound System and Armin Van Burren. I enjoyed both, but nothing really noteworthy to write about here. Swedish House Mafia was the last set to go on before Deadmau5. Despite my ever increasing urge to urinate, I stayed put at the main stage amidst the steadily enlarging crowd of people.

People seem to go nuts over Swedish House Mafia. I gotta tell you, I don’t get it. I mean their remixes are okay and all, but in the end it is just three strange looking dudes jumping up and down pushing buttons. As I watched them, I was reminded of the Saturday Night Live skit “Night at the Roxbury.” There seemed to be no method behind their music, just random remixes that never really flowed together. I was glad when their set ended. Then it was time for Deadmau5, the headliner of UMF on Saturday night.

For the past several months I have been a huge fan of Deadmau5. Well, really I am just completely in love with his hit Ghosts N Stuff. I have heard this song over 100 times and I never get sick of it. The song moves me. So, the idea of seeing Deadmau5 (aka Joel Zimmerman) perform Ghosts N Stuff live was completely thrilling to me.

More and more people flooded the main stage making space especially cramped. I could barely breath, creepy dudes were trying to feel up on me, and I had to pee oh so badly. But I was NOT about to lose my spot at the main stage. Deadmau5 is the entire reason I was there at the UMF to begin with.

Let me just go ahead and get this over with, Deadmau5 sucked. Joel Zimmerman has one amazing hit but that’s it. His performance is drastically below average. He sorta had a cool light show intro; however, that was quickly followed by technical difficulties and large lapses of time with no music. I never notice when DJs mess up, but when Deadmau5 screwed up, it was completely obvious. It probably didn’t help that he was so visibly agitated on the big screen that it drew extra attention to the fact that he was having technical difficulties. Nonetheless, the crowd was forgiving and they kept cheering him on. I was sort of getting annoyed, I mean I really had to pee at this point.

Eventually he got his act together and the music started. He was wearing his usual garb of a deceased rodent head along with a leather jacket. I wondered to myself how he was going to do an entire set while wearing such an extremely stuffy outfit. Within 10 minutes the mau5 head was off along with his leather jacket. I now know why he wears a mouse mask. He is the most unremarkable and unanimated DJ I saw all weekend. In fact, he looked plain annoyed that he was there. Where else did he want to be? Wouldn’t Ultra be his Mecca?

I will give Deadmau5 one prop though. If there is such a thing as musical fore-play, he’s the Don Juan of it. He teased the crowd for a solid 20 minutes with hints of what we were all waiting for, Ghosts N Stuff. And then….it happened. He played Ghosts N Stuff and my heart nearly stopped. The crowd went absolutely crazy. I have never seen so many elated people in one setting before. Suddenly, everyone was besties and we were jumping up and down in uniform. I thought to myself that if I suddenly were to have a heart attack, fall to the ground and be trampled, I would be okay with that. The culmination of my existence has led me to the live performance of this song. I could not have been happier in that moment.

Interestingly, he played Ghosts N Stuff in the middle of his set. I was expecting that to be the last song he played. I’m not sure what to make of such a choice to play his hit song so early. Does he think that people love his music so much that they want to hear all his other songs equally as much as they do Ghosts N Stuff? That’s pretty cocky. And I have to tell you, myself along with 100s of other people booked it straight out of there after he played Ghosts N Stuff. Maybe they all had to pee as equally as bad as I did, or maybe we all know that the rest of his stuff just aint worth hearing. His set went on for at least another hour. I left to use the bathroom and went to check out Ghostland Observatory at the Bayfront stage. When I peeked over my shoulder as I was exiting the main stage, I noticed his audience had significantly reduced in size.

Finally I was in an open space and I could breathe again. I was away from creepy dudes and on my way to a tree that I could secretly urinate behind. As I crouched down to relieve my bladder I looked slightly to my right. What is that?? Is that? Is that a pile of human feces? Dag! It totally is a pile of human feces and a little is on the bottom of my dress. Son of a biotch! The mass of feces that touched my garment reminded me of Deadmau5. Both were just plain and simple piles of shit.