Wavefront Music Festival, Day Two: Pushing The Tempo
By Katie Karpowicz in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 7, 2013 8:00PM
We admit it—we were a little nervous as to the direction the Wavefront Music Festival was taking Friday evening. Luckily the changes that day two brought weren't as stark as night and day but were distinguishable enough to keep good tunes and good vibes riding all day long.
We arrived just as London-based producer/DJ Caspa was dropping his remix of "Hangover (BaBaBa)"—a song that was then stuck in our heads for the remainder of the day. As one of the heavier artists on the bill for the day, Caspa's set cranked out continuous bass womps and grinding rhythms, but lacked momentum. Sometimes choppy transitions from beat to beat were the perfect reminder that contemporary DJs are no longer just mixers and electronic music producers are no longer just in the studios. A successful artist in today's market has to be able to lay down infectious records and seamlessly drop them into live sets.
We breathed a huge sigh of relief upon seeing that all of the stage's schedules appeared to be running on time Saturday. After Caspa's set ended we decided to stick around for a 30-minute set from sultry singer Nadia Ali from Queens, N.Y. The only thing we knew about this Pakistani-born songstress going into her performance was that she's collaborated with impressive producers like Avicii and Armin van Buuren. Once again, a live performance broke up a day full of DJs and we even caught ourselves unabashedly singing along to a somewhat out-of-place but still enjoyable cover of "Roxanne."
Friday's DFA Records Stage had been transformed into the Chicago Heritage Stage, complete with a full day of Chicago's most traditional and most beloved house music DJs. We caught a late afternoon set from Diz. A true professional, Diz's set married drum and bass rhythms with subtle yet electric melodies, never letting one beat ride long enough to grow stale. We loved it.
With a lull in our early evening schedule and a need to mentally recover from the bathroom situation on site—pot-o-potties will always be gross but these definitely could have used a little more monitoring—we found ourselves near the edge of the festival grounds listening to Bad Boy Bill's set on main stage. We were pleased to see many artists from last year return to Wavefront again this summer, but BBB was sort of a no brainer as he goes hand-in-hand with Spybar, whose staff produces the festival. What we found most interesting about the set was a speech from Bill's hype man about Bill's love for house music when, really, the set itself couldn't have been further from it. Instead, dubstep and heavy techno beats reigned through the speakers. We don't deny that Bill has a long standing presence in the local house scene, we just found it slightly ironic.
By 7:30 p.m. the night's biggest performers were slated to hit the stage and Wavefront morphed from a music festival on the beach to a nonstop effects production, at times almost to a theatrical point. Having previous experience with English dubstep producer Rusko's live shows, we knew he wouldn't disappoint at Wavefront. As a barrage of dancers filed on and off the stage, Rusko blasted through tracks like "Everyday" and "Somebody to Love." We can only attribute his ever-growing popularity to his ability to create original tracks you can't help but love and his genial onstage personality. Rusko's sets look more like an onstage workout—he jumps, claps, and does whatever else it takes to keep the crowd going. It was good a primer for the night's headliner, Fatboy Slim.
Fatboy might have been the perfect choice as a headliner for Wavefront—a festival meant to pay homage to house music. It's true Fatboy Slim isn't the most traditional of house music DJs, but he's no stranger to the genre and has built a career off blending house with its close relatives techno and electro to create something all its own.
We pushed the tempo through the classics ("Eat Sleep Rave Repeat," "Right Here, Right Now") while lasers, strobes, and LED screen images projected out from the stage and last night's light up warriors returned to blast the front rows of the audience with Co2 cannons. We enjoyed samples from Etta James and a young girl's Youtube cover of "Get Lucky" (which we unsuccessfully scoured the Internet for this morning) while giant yellow balloons bearing Fatboy's smiley face logo poured out onto the audience.
It was a sight to be seen and we didn't want to leave, except we knew a Chicago house music festival wouldn't be complete if we missed Frankie Knuckles closing set at the Chicago Heritage Stage. Knuckles kept it old school, skipping the LED-smothered DJ booth, instead moving his "plain-clothed" turntable to the front of it. We danced along to quick tempoed beats as the final surprise of the night—a 20 minute fireworks display—erupted in the background.
We left happy, tired and with sore feet—the three signs of a successful festival outing. Though there was too much talent on the bill to not have fun, we're happy that Wavefront's operations seem to be picking up steam and moving more smoothly. With one day left to go, we're eager to see what note the festival closes out its second year on.