For those that have been following you may have wondered why I haven’t posted for almost a week, when I said I would be updating on a daily basis for my trip. Well I don’t like making excuses but my laptop went haywire last Sunday and kept rebooting itself whenever I tried turning it on. So seeing as I didn’t want to spend the rest of my vacation sitting in some smoky Serbian internet café, instead of being out and about, I chose to wait until I arrived home to finish up the series filling you in on my mini-eastern euro adventure.
So last I left of was day 5 of my trip, day 3 of exit festival. Now that it is all done and over with I have to say day 3, Saturday, was with out a doubt the best day of Exit. The last day of Exit, Sunday, I started out by watching Prodigy. Their performance began at 12-midnight, which is just about when I arrived. Big Mistake. The main stage was absolutely packed, and I was standing so far at the back, I basically had to watch the massive projection monitors to get a glimpse of the action on the stage. Despite the crappy spot I had, it was still crazy seeing prodigy and the 50,000+ people that were rocking out to them. They played all their hits including old skool ones like “Smack my bitch up” and “Breathe”. They ended their set off with “Out of Space”. Absolutely amazing.
After prodigy I stuck around main stage to check out drum and base / dubstep sensations Chase & Status. I had never been a huge fan of drum&bass and only dabbled in dubstep prior to the festival, however after checking out a few big names like Andy C, Caspa & Rusko, and Sub Focus at the festival, it has really grown on me. Needless to say, Chase & Status dropped some absolutely killer joints. Definitely hoping to check Chase & Status out again in the future. Make sure to look out for the picture/video highlight posts I’m going to create in the next few days. There will surely be some videos showcasing Chase & Status.
Half way through Chase & Status’s set I left to meet up with this Serbian girl I had met the previous night during Etienne De Crecy. She was working at the information desk for Exit and she got off at 4am. When I met up with her she wanted to check out this Serbian band called Atheist Rap, which were playing on the Fusion Stage. All the lyrics of their songs were in Serbian, but I could still appreciate the instrumentation. As 5:30 approached, so did the object of my affection…
The headliner I pretty much dreamed and drooled about every night for the past three months was finally about to go on. So Ivana (the girl I had met) and I headed over to the Dance Arena to the top of the hill to watch none other than Green Velvet play head to head with Carl Cox! Yes Green Velvet head to head with Carl Cox! The set was absolutely jaw dropping from start to finish. Both of these dj’s/producers are such legends. Carl Cox the king of the big room techno sound and Green Velvet one of staples in Techno music in the past 10-15 or so years. Although Carl Cox has a little bit more of a big room techno sound and Green Velvet has a dirty Detroit/Chicago style of Techno, the two managed to pull off one hell of a show that went together seamlessly and flawlessly. The two of them had so much personality. You could see them interacting and laughing with each other on stage, dancing around, playing for the crowd, etc.
Part way through the set they did a tribute to the late Michael Jackson, including a couple amazing remixes of MJ’s songs that I have never heard (I think they were Carl Cox’s own remixes). One of the best tributes to MJ out of the whole festival.
One thing that’s awesome about Exit is the theatrics. Throughout the festival you can expect to see fire breathers, stilt walkers, actors dressed like monkey’s, space men, etc. , and all sorts of dancers and other such things. This year they had an amazing MJ impersonator that came out during the Carl Cox vs. Green Velvet MJ tribute. It was really well done. Near the end of the tribute one of the actors dressed as a monkey starting pretending to give MJ a BJ which was pretty funny (don’t mind my sick sense of humor).
Anyway back to the music. Carl Cox and Green Velvet really stepped up for this monumental set, a set that would close down the final day of the 10 year anniversary of Exit festival. They closed the show down at about 8:30am and despite that people had just been partying for 4 days straight, and that it was 8:30am people were going absolutely crazy for their entire set, a feat not easy to accomplish under such factors.
That raps things up for day 4 of exit, day 6 of my trip. I will be posting a few more posts this week including; an over all review of The Exit Festival 10 year anniversary, a post about the remaining 5 days I spent in Novi Sad Serbia, as well as a couple Photo and Video blogs showing highlights of the trip and festival. So be sure to check back a couple times this week for more interesting content!
Aaron
“Getting down to business, so you can get to the business of getting down”