CREAMFIELDS 2012

 CREAMFIELDS

David Guetta/Alesso/ShockOne/Above & Beyond and more
Supreme Court Gardens
Saturday, May 5, 2012

Super club Cream and the spin-off festival Creamfields started off around 20 years ago at Nation nightclub in Liverpool, UK, and with mud underfoot, soccer shirts on display, ponchos for sale and eyes nervously looking to the heavens at the threat of rain, you could have been forgiven for thinking that you were in the north of England tonight. But, that’s not necessarily a bad thing as the drinks flowed and, perhaps because it was a Saturday instead of the usual Sunday night for festivals, everyone was friendly and up for a real party.This was helped along by Swedish progressive house prodigy Alesso who ignited the main stage with his infectious attitude and pumped up the crowd with Calvin Harris’ Feel So Close and an interesting remix of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know.

Over in the Bass arena, Nick Thayer provided one of the early highlights with some brassic beats. He seemed to be enjoying things as much as the crowd as (with scarce use of headphones) he mixed down some big tracks including his own Like Boom and Run DMC’s My Adidas over the top of AC/DC’s Back In Black, occasionally swigging from what looked like a full bottle of vodka. He then hung around for local boy ShockOne’s sterling take on the world of bass. Taking to the decks with a Beastie Boys t-shirt on, as tribute to recently passed MCA from said group, he ended his set with Sabotage before heading down to the indulge in a bit of impromptu crowd surfing with his eager fans.

Figure, followed by Downlink, completed the program here, turning the arena into a moshpit with massive bro-step wobbles and bass including Figure’s own apocalyptic track The Werewolf. Immense. Perhaps because it was undercover, the Kabuki room didn’t really seem to get going until after sundown when the cool Dutchman Sied Van Riel managed to entice people in with some driving trance, including the self-penned Stealing Time. He was followed by Kenny L and Richie G who seemed the most ‘up for it’ performers of the night, their enthusiasm infected the crowd and this was enhanced by a selection of upfront and classic hard dance such as fantastic acid work out Molly by Cedric Gervais. Up next were another pairing, Dutch duo W&W. They opened with Ferry Corsten’s feel-good anthem Can You Feel It and they didn’t let the pace drop for the rest of their set.

Back on the main stage, UKtrance trio Above & Beyond got everyone psyched. On New Year’s Eve 2007, they played to an audience of an estimated one million people in Rio de Janeiro. Though not quite as big, they still received a rapturous welcome by the crowd as they strolled out to the decks looking like a couple of nerds straight out of the The Big Bang Theory. Playing feel good trance such as In And Out Of Phase by Andrew Bayer & Matt Lange and the incredibly uplifting Mozart by Mat Zo & Arty, they constantly communicated with the throngs by displaying messages on the big screen and it worked well. Australia’s own Dirty South followed and his pumped up electro house went down a treat. It was probably just a coincidence that when he played a remix of morose rockers REM and their track Losing My Religion, a few spots of rain descended from the heavens.

Opinion is massively divided about world’s #1 DJ David Guetta. His Fuck Me I’m Famous nights in Ibiza are packed out every week and his collaborations with seemingly every R&B star around has made him the most famous DJ in the US, but would his brand of pop-house which he has conquered the world with be a little too sweet for the crowd tonight? It was a spectacle, that’s for sure, as he played all his collaborative tracks: Without You (ft Usher), Memories (ft KiD CuDi) and Turn Me On (ft Nicki Minaj) accompanied by pyrotechnics and amazing visuals to a rapturous response. There’s no denying his popularity and the crowd tonight seemed to have a sweet tooth but playing The Black Eyed Peas as your encore is unforgivable, one sugar cube too far for this writer. Oh well, c’est la vie.