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REPORTING LIVE: IDENTITY FEST 2011 HOURS 1-5

All photos by Nick Minieri, for some more sick shots, visit beantownboogiedown.com.

It’s approximately 4 a.m. when Sydney and I get back from IDentity Fest in Mansfield and fall onto her couches.

Ten minutes later: “Do you hear it, too?” I ask her.

“What … you mean how the buildups and booming bass lines are still echoing over and over in your head even though the room is dead silent?”

We give each other terrified looks, then laugh. They might consider changing the name of Identity festival to “Insanity Festival;”for ten hours straight we literally did nothing but listen to music and dance—we didn’t have time. There were so many good shows going on at the same time…all we could do was run from one to another.

I didn’t put on body paint but there are blue splatters all over me. I haven’t eaten since…

“Thanks, guys. I’m gonna go brush my teeth and get breakfast now. Bye.” Datsik shouts when the bass reverberating off the asphalt around the Rockstar Dim Mak stage finally resides around 2 p.m. on Saturday.

“Yo, I think this is the best way I could’ve started my day, so thank you!”

I definitely concur. This morning I boarded a school bus in Allston that I somehow signed up for to get to and from Identity fest … 40 minutes later I enter the Comcast Center, run up the main path in my excitement to get to the Rockstar Stage, immediately lose all of my friends in the insanity—find the stage and find myself in the midst of this mayhem (:24):

Forget the fact that it’s 1:30 on a Saturday afternoon and I would usually be rolling out of bed and eating some Honey Bunches of Oats because now I’m in the dead center of the crowd for Datsik and—

I GUESS I GOT MY SWAAAGGGER BACK….WOMP WOMP.

Excision& datsik- guess i got my swagger back by tylershaffer77

One of the best tracks we catch after arriving late is Datsik’s remix of Rusko’s “Hold On,” which I think was remixed about three times throughout the day by various artists. None of which threw in DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win,” which epitomizes the set.

30 minutes in, I start getting worried… how can I possibly manage to keep holding my arms above my head for the next nine hours?

“Everybody’s hands go up!”

Datsik commands as he throws in the Excision rap, breaking my neurotic musing.

“AND THEY STAY THERE. AND THEY STAY THERE. AND THEY STAY THERE.”

Well, guess they’re going to stay there.

Modeselektor’s on at 2:30 on the Main Stage so my friend Brian and I book it there so we can get good spots. We’re sitting near the aisle in the second row of seats when Gernot Bronsert and black jump-suited, sunglassed Sebastian Szary take the stage and Szary says matter-of-factly in a thick German accent:

“You’re all really welcome to come into this area right here,” pointing to the VIP pit right in front of the stage. I love him instantly.

The White Flash feat. Thom Yorke by Modeselektor

The security guard looks confused and then afraid; he has no choice but to open the gates as we pour in and secure spots feet away from the Berlin-based duo. I had no idea this would be the emptiest the huge venue would be all day, because halfway through Modeselektor’s set I look back and see thousands of kids have filled the front half of the arena and there’s no way out. For Avicii and Kaskade the crowd was double the size—that’s almost 20,000 kids, plus the thousands more who were seeing other acts.

I can definitely get down to Modeselektor's unique sound, which is like nothing I've heard before. It's full of energy... full of pulsing, dirty, dark, garagey beats with hip hop and melodic samples mixed in, leaving me no choice but to get down low and dance against the kids around me as if I'm in a dark club. Here's an idea of the sound ... some samples of their album Monkeytown, to be released in late September: Modeselektor "Monkeytown" (MONKEYTOWN015) OUT BETWEEN SEP27-OCT04 by Modeselektor

But I'm pissed because this ridiculous girl in front of me has one of those STUPID pacifier things in her mouth and is wearing neon spandex shorts and a bra and raving like a goddamn lunatic.

Luckily, Modeselektor puts me in a humorous mood as they vivify the techno set with a whimsical performance: lip-syncing the slow, melodic samples while caressing each other, Szary laying down right in front of us, downing Heinekens and smoking cigarettes—at one point he even gave the rest of a full cigarette to someone in the crowd, went back behind his mixer and laptop and immediately lit a new one for himself.

I really want to hang out with these people.

Their spirit is infectious—I find myself dancing around that idiotic girl in front of me without her noticing, as the bros wearing sunglasses next to me (who are actually pretty funny) laugh along (though I’m sure they’re just hoping any female will “take off their g string”). That girl in front of me, bumping into me now, is a mere step away from doing so.

Then all hell breaks lose as they step to the edge of the stage and pop a bottle of champagne, shooting it into the crowd and all over us- giving us the shower we all desperately need.

After the show I run into a bunch of friends. We and our big blue stuffed monkey decide to take a quick breather in the woods and catch a bit of Nervo’s set.

Apparently the term “breather” does not exist in this forest. The awesome Australian girls with crazy hair have the entire woods off their feet and again, all hands are up.

“I wanna get hiiii iiiii iiiiiii iiiiiiiii iiii iiiiiii iiii iiiiii ii iiii iii iiiiiii ggghhhhhhh” rings through the forest.

We stay for the beginning of Booka Shade’s set, which is amazing to see live and I am once again dancing uncontrollably as they pound out the sickest beats right in front of us—Actually, more like 50 rows below us—though, again, the claps and tribal bass take me a way to another amazing dimension of sound. Every layer reaches the whole packed stadium.

It sounds like this:

Booka Shade - Night Falls by rafacambraia

And from where I'm standing, dancing by one of the center railings, the view looks like this:

After leaving the roofed main stage, the sun beats down and reflects off the black macadam that Mikey and I are crossing, en route to the guy selling water bottles out of a dumpster. We buy three just in case, because we’re planning on staying at the Dim Mak stage for the rest of Crystal Method’s DJ set and Nero right after. “Well,” I say as we walk back through a sea of neon and flat brims. “We just saved the lives of us and all of our friends.”

The Crystal Method are 100% crazy, but lovable crazies nonetheless. Ken Jordan is playing this insane contraption… which turns out to be

“a custom-designed CDJ with two guitar necks and a keyboard attached…”

my friend Brian explains as the Crystal Method demonstrates electronic intensity at it’s finest—especially since over the past ten years, these hard-electro veterans have developed a formula for their mixes that energizes IDentity with everything from the Tetris theme song to Black Sabbath’s War Pigs to the a buildup sampling the Latin American "No Soy Americano" riff:

The combination of Scott Kirkland being unable to talk and only screaming insanely into the mic whenever he tries (“THIS IS OUR TOUR MANAGER JOHN. IT’S HIS BIRTHDAY… HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTHAFUCKAAA!!!”), the people around me jumping fanatically for over an hour, the beach balls that somehow keep smacking me in the face, and the sun turning us all into a big sweaty mess leaves me wondering for the umpteenth time during this festival summer:

What the HELL is going on? Then, What time is it?!?! (only about 4:45 pm) And finally.. How are we going to make it through Nero???

Suddenly a glorious bag full of ice cold water is smushed into my face, which feels amazing considering my whole body is on fire—exactly as Crystal Method drops “Come Back clean and “Don’t blame the drugs in your bloodstream!!!” echoes over and over. So I guess it’s just your average every day electroh-my-fucking-god-ni-ca.

After Crystal Method we're in the prime location for Nero, who, thankfully don’t have a name that can be confused with a heavy drug when you talk about their show.

Ever since Camp Bisco I’ve been looking forward to seeing Nero again. If you haven’t seen my video from the show, you should, but basically the Grooveshark tent exploded AND Dan Stephens dropped a System of a Down remix. The set at Identity is outside during the day, and I already feel nuts from the Crystal Method as I stand waiting for Stephens.

He opens with Doomsday, cuts from Guilt to Crush On You, and pretty much plays all the big ones in the same order as Bisco. He flawlessly mixes "Innocence" and "Bass Cannon" by Flux Pavilion and during “I Feel So Close” throws in a high-pitched sample of “In Your Eyes:”

In your eyes I can see a million starlights. Calling me calling me calling me home to ecstasy.

“Promises” elicits an excited clap sesh from the crowd during the slow pretty buildups, and is really fun to dance with everyone to…not so fun when “YOU GOT ME SO WILD” is stuck in my head for the next 48 hours, and probably for the next two weeks.

It’s about 6:15 right now, but there’s no time for dinner. Avicii's on next at the Main Stage. Steve Lawler is playing his second set, his final show on the IDentity tour—and Steve Aoki is about to take over the Dim Mak stage at the same time, wreaking serious havoc. Stay tuned for the next five hours…the insanity continues.