Deadmau5: Raise Your Weapon and dance
At that time of night where anything that remains stationary smells of urine, the trek from one side of the field to the other is somewhat traumatic. Wading through a brown sea and collapsed mud casualties, Toronto’s Deadmau5 had better be on top form tonight.
A well-rehearsed ‘stay away’ expression from me is a complete failure, by this time of the weekend there’s a lot scarier faces going around, requiring much less effort than mine. With girls setting fire to hairspray, projectile wellies and grown men throwing themselves belly first into a 20 foot slide in the mud, the party asylum vibe is in full swing.
In contrast Joel Zimmerman, known as DeadMau5, in his famous foam face-wear, is the perfect picture of calm. Controlling his noise behind a giant cube on it’s diagonal, the producer pulls out his progressive trance for starters. Having just slid to the stage from Bloody Beetroots, at this point tropical downpour is more threatening than the open-air acoustics of the giant rodent though it would seem he's plotting a gradual build tonight.
With plastic ponchos-a-plenty in the crowd there’s certainly no bags for life on display, except maybe some of the more mature festival goers. Regardless of age or appearance it seems most folks are particularly barbaric this evening, the surrounding antics and eyesores taking away from the slow steady build of Zimmerman.
With sedate visuals until now and the only movement on stage, the music-maker’s air drumming and miming to various samples, his reappearance from behind his cube with a bright orange mouse-head and a grin wider than The Cheshire Cat suggests we're in for a change. Ripping the gear stick entirely out of the vehicle and smacking you around the face with it, Sofi Needs A Ladder strikes. As the filth unfolds a voice cries “Hello Scotland,” and SOFI joins Deadmau5 live on stage in a saltire print hooded-top and hot pants.
With her all American attitude and prowess, the performance level is elevated to new levels, joined by more intense visuals and cries of “Drop it like a needle on a record.” The crowd, delighted with our new addition, dance harder and Deadmau5 takes some time out from behind the booth to perch on the front of the stage for One Trick Pony, manically clapping his hands to the pulse.
A demented laugh delivers him back behind his cube of destiny, with his original mouse-head back in place and a menacing hollogram of a laughing face projected onto it’s surface. To the soundtrack of the death march it’s time for things turn a whole lot sinister and the bomb is dropped. An abrasive Ghosts N Stuff attacks, send the already wild crowd to a crazed crescendo more than worthy of closing T in the Park 2011. Now where's the shower?
