By Kwaak Je-yup
When the first announcements were made earlier this year, there was no shortage of skeptics. Hosting the world’s largest electronic dance music festival at Seoul’s Olympic Stadium seemed to them too ambitious a project, especially given the overcrowded season of music festivals this summer.
Especially after the event’s previous Warsaw stop was abruptly cancelled last month — a week before the scheduled date — many started questioning the possibility of recreating the magic of Miami’s iconic annual festival held in March in other parts of the world.
Boy, were they wrong. Even though nothing could match the original Miami Music Week experience, the Friday and Saturday’s UMF, or Ultra Music Festival, was Korea’s best weekend in recent memory, with an atmosphere so special that words could not properly describe.
Beat the heat with more heat, so the local proverb goes: the saying was shown in true form as more than 50,000 people danced their socks off in the 37-degree weather from 4 p.m. to midnight on both days. The sweat that interminably trickled down foreheads and soaked t-shirts could never dampen the crowd’s energy.
The DJs who spun to the out-of-control audience seemed to agree. Legendary figures like Carl Cox and Tiesto called the excited participants “amazing” on Twitter, and Skrillex, the 24-year-old artist on everyone’s lips, tweeted: “UMF Seoul Korea was easily top five festivals I’ve ever played ... that was intense ... crowd gave me goose bumps the whole time.”
And they only have themselves to congratulate, as they showed how to sustain unbridled sonic pleasure for hours and hours. At no other occasion has this reporter seen so many Koreans, among the world’s heaviest drinkers, letting themselves go to this extent without much alcohol; music was more than enough to put them on a high.
Critics of the EDM (electronic dance music) genre say every record sounds the same, but if they had come to UMF last weekend, even a casual listener would have realized why the finest DJs in the world can charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single gig. For some sets, especially those of the four main acts Tiesto, Cox, Skrillex and Steve Aoki, there was no filler at all. There was no time to waste by standing around. There was good music — non-stop.
The Seoul audience was treated to the top two highest-earning DJs in the world — Forbes recently reported that Tiesto, the world’s best-paid DJ, earned $22 million last year and Skrillex, in second place, $15 million — and they proved why they deserve the titles. Each was in a class of his own.
The latter, headlining the main stage inside the Olympic Stadium on Friday, mixed the reggae genre into his own tracks, surprising the audience with every change of record. The only complaint would be the volume, which was noticeably lowered during his set; only in the sections closest to the raised DJ booth could you truly enjoy the experience. In contrast, during the previous segment, spun by Miami’s own Steve Aoki, there was both power and excellence.
It was difficult to decide who came out on top the next evening, as the two institutions of the electro genre, Tiesto and Cox, went head to head simultaneously in separate venues. The latter, who turned 50 last month, spun until 1:30 a.m., and the crowd was so large that they filled up the space even outside the Carl Cox & Friends tent.
Other highlights included John Digweed, who was in top form, as well as Chuckie and Sander Kleinenberg. It was a privilege to hear these electro world’s household names in one place.
Meanwhile, local acts were sidelined by the global acts’ greatness, and the substantial amount of people left the main stage to see Digweed when Team H, with hallyu star Jang Geun-suk, showed up. The decision to put the act just before Tiesto was misplaced.
The logistical nightmare witnessed during Lady Gaga’s concert in April was surprisingly absent, with most of the crowd able to navigate between venues without much trouble.
On the downside, there was garbage everywhere, given the severe lack of trash cans, and using the T-Money card as the single method of purchase caused a stir among many people.