- Sweat, massive crowds, a trip back to the old school and a racecourse full of festival goers. That's a short and sweet way to describe this year's Future Music Festival in Sydney. The racecourse itself isn't exactly tailor-made for hosting a festival, with the stages set around at something of a dogleg and it's a bit of a trek to get from the entrance to the middle of the venue, where all the main stages were set.
The masses of crowds didn't really assist with navigating around either, and made losing your friends, especially after things started to get messy, all the easier. Nevertheless, the lineup for Future this year was an improvement on the last's impressive effort, boasting the Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Richie Hawtin, Sven Väth, Steve Angello and Pendulum amongst over two dozen acts.
Once we'd managed to navigate our way to the main stages, I immediately grabbed an expensive beer and headed to The Likes of You tent, which was hosting acts for the serious dance music palate, such as Loco Dice, Leftfield, Väth and Hawtin's Plastikman live show. Being in the tent for the whole time had its advantages, as it was something of a sanctuary away from the heaving crowds of the larger stages with its own much quieter bar and toilets.
We managed to catch the last 45 minutes of Loco Dice, who was playing some nice minimal tech with the occasional Latin-tinged sample thrown in. The tent was around a third full, with plenty of space for the slightly older and more discerning crowd to dance. Leftfield followed Loco Dice and were particularly impressive, demonstrating their influence on so much that has followed. Tunes "Release the Pressure" and "Original" had the crowd going, but "Phat Planet," predictably, destroyed the dancefloor. Only John Lydon appearing and belting out "Open Up" could have improved it.
After Leftfield, we engaged in a momentary interlude, watching Dizzee Rascal's put-my-face-on-every-screen-possible, one-man commercial grime party. I can't say I'm Dizzee's biggest fan, but can't argue that he knows how to work a crowd. Back in The Likes of You tent, Väth was playing a much more chilled out set than I was expecting, but gradually spun darker and more driving towards the end. He was accompanied by an impromptu gaggle of dancers plucked from the crowd, situated on either side of the decks and included, amongst the standard selection of the best looking girls in the crowd, a fat bloke in a Swiss lycra jump-suit and a wig.
The following Plastikman live set included a cage which completely enclosed Hawtin, only occasionally revealing silhouetted glimpses of the superstar fiddling with what appeared to be his entire studio setup. The Plastikman signature drum roll permeated through every other tune amongst the thumping basslines and intricate breakdowns, giving the whole set a feeling that it was about to go off at any point.
As festivals go, Future had its good and bad points. The strength of the lineup this year cannot be questioned and the bad points mainly result from the sheer number of people in one place, so it would be unfair to criticise simply for popularity. That said, there were some great performances, particularly Leftfield, that made it worth braving the masses.