Masquerade Motel MiamiGrand Central ParkFriday, March 23, 2012Better Than: Rollin’ balls inside a Vicks vapor room with a stolen subwoofer.Swedish House Mafia’s Masquerade Motel sent so much bass rumbling through Grand Central Park that you could feel it from your toes to your fingers and nose. It was heavy. It…
Standing elbow to elbow last night with people going out of their minds in front of the live stage, it was easy to forget that Pretty Lights’ first Miami show was at the Vagbaond, just over two years ago. In October 2009, the then-cult Colorado producer born Derek Vincent Smith…
The collective celebration of electronic dance music (otherwise known as Ultra Music Festival) finally kicked off yesterday at Bayfront Park. And a few hiccups aside, everything seemed to go smoothly. We had gotten so used to the layout at Bicentennial Park that first thing we did was survey the lay…
If you’ve only ever raved and raged with Ultra Music Festival while totally naked and home alone with your laptop, a 12-inch glowstick, and the fest’s live YouTube stream, then it’s fucking time to physically visit Bayfront Park. Just think of everything that you’re missing by staying cloistered in your…
It’d be an understatement to say New Order’s performance at Ultra Music Festival last night was a rare treat. Instead, it was a benchmark for Ultra’s ultimate booking muscle and its massive importance on the local concert landscape. Let’s be real — when could you ever expect to see both…
Check out Crossfade’s daily party guide — plus WMC and MMW’s fifteen best parties. Good morning, beat freak. Over the last seven days, you’ve gotten down with a genderqueer rapper in Overtown, raged at each and every free fucking party on the sked (not to mention WMC and MMW’s fifteen…
Electro warrior Wolfgang Gartner threw down a killer closing Friday-night set at Ultra Music Festival. But just 24 hours earlier he could hardly imagine being in our fair city — let alone enjoying it. The LA-based DJ vented some negative vibes on Twitter, saying, tweeting, “sitting in my home on…
Performance-wise, no Kraftwerk show is really more special than any other. The band’s very German mastery of automation, precision, and repetation renders the men on stage as close to robots as their Man-Machine album would suggest. To say one Kraftwerk performance is really any better than another is to swear…
Winter Music Conference is known for one type of music in particular. Whether you call it house, or call it electronic music, there’s no denying its prevalence in Miami every late March. This is the week of the DJ. On Thursday, the genre of music that first put two turntables…
Check out Crossfade’s full 45-photo slideshow of Hard Miami Day Two at Grand Central — plus the review of Hard Miami and Mad Decent’s Moombahton Massive. Hard Miami 2012 With Boys Noize, Busy P, Brodinski and others Grand Central, Miami Thursday, March 22, 2012 Better Than: Admitting the hard electro…
Like water draining from a home plate backstop aquarium, the little respect we have left for the Florida Miami Marlins continues to dwindle. Enraging fans has seemingly become a common practice among the organization’s front office–robbing Miami-Dade County taxpayers, a “horrifying” home run sculpture, horrendous new uniforms, etc. The latest,…
Even though Ultra Music Festival’s lineup and set times are conveniently and instantly available via the fest’s official app, we here at Crossfade wanna highlight three two reasons why all y’all beat freaks might need an easily printable, plain-text version of the UMF sked: 1. You can’t afford a fucking…
Dirtybird BBQ With Claude VonStroke, Justin Martin, and the rest of the crew Villa 221, Miami Thursday, March 22, 2012 Better Than: Any other company barbecue in existence. Everyone knows a cheeseburger and French fries are perfect together. But the Dirtybird crew says, “Screw that noise. You don’t need those…
When you’re Tiësto, a 43-year-old superproducer who’s accomplished, like, everything … How do you even drag your ass outta bed in the beat-freaking morning and then uhntz-uhntz off to work? Honestly, if we here at Crossfade had won DJ Mag’s Top 100 Popularity Poll three times and then gotten named…
Last night’s heaving, multi-room party thrown jointly by L.A.-based Smog and Miami-based Basshead was intense in every aspect. The volume was at 11. The revelers’ energy was at 11. The level of confusion trying to get around the sprawling downtown club Mekka was at 11. (Seriously, the place is like…
Check out Crossfade’s daily party guide — plus WMC and MMW’s fifteen best parties. Are you ready to spend the next three days penned inside the gates of Bayfront Park like some kinda wild, half-naked, EDM-addled party animal? With just 18,000 seconds till Ultra Music Festival starts uhntz-uhntz-ing like a…
It’s a question that really comes into focus during Winter Music Conference and Miami Music Week. If the end game of capital-D Dance music is supposed to be getting everybody grooving together, why are there so many divisions? Why do some DJs always end up playing for the bottle-service crowd…
Last night, walking into the lobby of the decadent Fontainebleau Miami Beach as Laidback Luke’s Super You & Me got underway, I had to remind myself … It’s only Wednesday…
Check out the full lineup and set times for Ultra 2012. Ultra Music Festival sold out months ago. So unless you’re wiling to drop $7,500 on a VIP package or purchase ridiculously marked-up General Admission scalper tickets, quit bitching and accept the fact that you’re not going to catch Tiësto…
Even though Winter Music Conference and Miami Music Week have turned into a nine days of EDM, we’ve keep it pretty low key. Until last night. First stop: The world premiere of Ultra Music Festival’s Can U Feel It concert documentary. Standing there on the red carpet was sort of…
Last night’s debut of Can U Feel It: The UMF Experience, a new 45-minute concert documentary about last year’s Ultra Music Festival, served as a sort of coronation of both Ultra and dance music in general. For one thing, there was the red carpet. Just a decade ago, the thought…
Admittedly, we’re all a little giddy ’round the New Times office. Rumor has it that Madonna’s going to drop by for a special in-house performance and breathe new life into our defunct Sectional Sofa Series. What sparked the rumor? One writer suggesting that, “we should totally get Madonna on our…
