- Miami-based festival III Points takes its name from its three thematic pillars: music, art and technology. When you walk into the open-air Mana Wynwood Production Village, located between Little Havana and Little Haiti, two of those elements are obvious. A DJ spins energetic tracks by the entrance as you go through security, and you traverse a fabricated tunnel before emerging onto an open lot riddled with lit-up pyramids and other decorations. The technology aspect was less apparent—the big building where the Main Frame stage is located had a few tech-related visual displays, and I eventually came across an interactive, motion-controlled virtual space that attendees could play with outside. After spending three days at III Points, though, the name made more sense in reference to the attention it splits between rock, rap and electronic music.
The weekend of October 9th, the team behind III Points embarked on their third annual event. The grassroots organization started out as a celebration of local talent in 2013, but has since grown into a beacon for general festivalgoers and anyone with an appreciation for hot climates and musical diversity. Headliners for the 2015 edition included Run The Jewels, Nicolas Jaar, Neon Indian, Panda Bear, Bonobo, Damian Lazarus, Jay Electronica, The Field and Ghostface Killah. The lineup was geared towards a wide audience—to a fault, in fact. King Krule's bluesy rock had the main stage in its grasp on the closing night, but sticking around for the later acts meant enduring @poorgrrrl's incoherent performance. That festival conundrum of having to settle in at one stage while something interesting happens elsewhere was rare, especially for anyone hoping to hear house and techno.
Only the Black Hole stage provided a consistent club environment. Like the Underground Stage at Detroit's Movement festival, Black Hole's big, boomy space was a dark haven, where the likes of Jacques Greene, Bicep, Mano Le Tough, Otto Von Schirach and others dictated its 4/4 pulse. Tech house was the predominate flavor of the weekend, so any semblance of variety was eagerly welcomed. Heavy hitters like DJ Tennis served up straightforward rhythms and druggy atmospheres without fail, and the audience devoured them happily. Even Bicep seemed to fall in line on the second night, pandering to a locked-in crowd rather than rousting them up with some lively house and garage. It wasn't until the duo set the stage for Jacques Greene with Martyn & Four Tet's "Glassbeadgames" that the music finally stretched its legs.
Black Hole was the place to be for the final hours of III Points's second night. Between Roman Flügel dropping in a heavy remix of Kraftwerk's "It's More Fun To Compute," multiple spins of Axel Boman's "Nokturn (Grand Finale)," and Jacques Greene's dips into hip-hop and R&B, there was finally a sense of free-flowing selections. But it was local hero Danny Daze who ultimately stole the show (perhaps the entire festival) with a flawless and powerful set of electro, acid and techno. He set the mood early with his drum-heavy 214 collaboration, "Las Caderas," and a dark techno cut I couldn't place, which somehow made its repeating "strobe light" sample sound sexually charged. I was buzzing so much from Daze's set—not to mention the Red Bull cocktails served throughout the grounds—that I skipped cabbing to my hotel, and walked 45 minutes towards downtown Miami with echoes of "Chain Breaker" knocking around in my head.
Many performances, however, were marred by technical difficulties. During the second night, the Black Hole's soundsystem was plagued by feedback and harsh frequencies (dancers regularly had to plug their ears with their fingers). It had been handled by the next day, though the music still blasted at an unsettling volume despite a considerably smaller turnout. Worse than that were the issues with air conditioning. The enormous Main Frame room hosted The Field, Panda Bear, Bonobo and Nicolas Jaar on opening night, but the place was borderline uninhabitable. On multiple occasions, someone in the crowd yelled, "Turn on the AC!" I broke a sweat simply standing in the back as Jaar mixed together his "And I Say" track with How To Dress Well's "Words I Can't Remember" and Steve Reich's "Come Out." I saw many people walk in and turn right around, and I had to jump outside for fresh air myself after 15 minutes. The next night was better, but somehow the fans in the Black Hole room disappeared, once again creating a stagnant atmosphere far worse than the Miami humidity outside.
The III Points team apparently had growing pains to address, but the weekend's overall feeling was jovial and enthusiastic. Every dance floor was largely courteous, and only a few sets ran behind schedule. Perhaps hoping to bring together their thematic pillars for one big show, III Points had DOOM perform on the main stage via bespoke live-streaming projection. DOOM selected dusty cuts on his computer while smoking a blunt and holding a Bacardi bottle, before disappearing and reappearing on the mic. Much to the crowd's excitement, he started rapping classics like "Hoe Cakes" with that familiar DOOM deadpan. Then it became obvious: the guy was unquestionably lip-syncing. What had been a valiant effort of ingenuity revealed itself as underdeveloped and deceptive. There's a solid foundation for an engaging and eclectic weekend party underneath the flashy veneer of III Points, and they'd do well to build it naturally rather than dress it in techy glitz and inflated headliners.
Photo credit: Jason Koerner