CHECK OUT THE GALLERY FROM THE EVENT HERE.

It was a hot and muggy day that greeted the crowd as they entered the last dance festival for the Perth’s summer season, and with water being sold for the bargain price of $5 for a 600ml bottle, it was going to be an expensive one. Right from the start the fences of Future Music were under a constant state of attack. Possibly because of the economy or more likely due to saturation of music festivals in Perth this summer, many young people decided $120 was too much to pay. When they jumped the fence it wasn’t one or two people at a time, it was hordes of them, 30 or 40 in one go. It was like watching an African nature documentary as a heard of springbok bound for their lives as an unseen predator encroached. While standing near the VIP ,area an attack on the fences occurred and we were swarmed by very young girls frantic running towards the crowd to be immersed into a horde of lookalikes. Unfortunately a pack of these girls accidentally jumped into the VIP area and managed to find themselves stuck in maze of fences that separated the VIPs from us regular folk. This one young blonde girl was desperately straddling her final barrier separating her from her freedom when rather large, burly bloke came balling over, laughed and hip and shouldered her right off of the fence. She flew into the air and landed hard onto her back. The man laughed, picked her up, patted her on her bottom and sent her on her way off into the crowd. Catch and release.

Opening the Future Music stage was the Ian Carey Project. The main stage had a surprisingly large crowd for such an early time. The crowd were excited but pandemonium broke out when Ian Carey dropped his big hit song Get Shaky. As soon as the crowd realised what song it was, the masses sprinted in to get as close to the stage as possible to dance and jump. The fevered energy only lasted for half of the song. Steve Angello & Sebastian Ingrosso, the members of the Swedish House Mafia who aren’t afraid to fly, built on where Ian Carey had left off. However trying to listen to their set in shaded tent area, or anywhere near the bar proved impossible as the Future Music and the Likes Of You tent sound systems were competing, sounding like a teenager learning to mix in his bedroom.

Moving over to the Likes Of You tent I found Joachim Garruad playing to a sweaty audience. The tent prevented any sort of a breeze that might be blowing through Wellington Square from cooling the crowd. The Frenchman could have done with a bit of originality and variation in his set as the part I caught saw him play three Daft Punk tracks in 15 minutes. He followed this up with Smack My Bitch Up. CSS played a set that was probably a lot more rock orientated than a majority of the audience would have liked, but they were full of energy and sounded tight. Lovefoxxx had crazy face paint and during the set stripped down to a floral onesie, but the visuals during their show were questionable. Displayed was Red Bull motorbikes and BMX action mixed in with a from behind crowd shot featuring muscular, shirtless, old men, standing, watching CSS. As their set ended with radio hits Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above and Alala, the medium-size crowd who had started to watch them had wandered off for other stages.

Outside N.E.R.D found it hard to fit their sound to large outdoor festival stage. Their mixture of live band and samples did not travel far into the crowd with all but those standing close to the stage being able to distinguish any of the music they were attempting to play. Playing hits such as Rock Star and She Wants To Move got the female members of the crowd worked up, with Pharrel at one point holding up ladies underwear and said they were taking collections. During the set girls were invited to come onto the stage to dance, though those who got on stage were more interested in taking photos to post up on Facebook than actually enjoying the moment of being on stage.

Lifelike played the yellow stage to an all but non-existent crowd, but for those who were there enjoyed the ample room to dance without being balled over by shirtless boys deciding to work on their wrestling moves. Lifelike played a set full of filtered French house, featuring many of his own remixes and songs by Fred Falke, Alan Braxe and Stardust. Where as Lifelike played a hands in the air fun set, Richie Hawtin brought dark engaging techno to the Likes Of You Tent. Relentless, thumping bass worked a peaking crowd; Hawtin was a definite musical highlight for the day.

Headlining the Future Music stage was the always entertaining, UK live dance act, the Basement Jaxx. Featuring a rotating roster of singers, in an impressive display of costumes, the Basement Jaxx work hard to give their set a party atmosphere. One of the more interesting costumes being worn by a Basement Jaxx singer was a wedding dress. Working through songs that have featured on many dance floors for the past ten years, the Jaxx also drop in quick samples and cover songs into their set to get across their party/jukebox act, they included such songs as Fake Blood Mars and a reworking of Kings of Leon Sex Is On Fire.

Much has been said about the visual aspect of Etienne de Crecy cube show. YouTube features many videos of the cube, but for me the music was the most engaging aspect of his show. The sounds emitting from the cube were terrific, and when the drums combined with the lighting of the cube it was hard to not be impressed by the show we were witnessing. Also it was hilarious watching the gurners run away from the stage, in their eyes you could see the pure terror as their brains failed to comprehend the cube.

Three years in, Future Music seems to one of the festivals that will last through the inevitable implosion of the Australian music festival scene. With the influx of festivals, it will be increasingly harder for organisers to pull the amazing line-up of acts that we have been accustomed to in years gone by. Hopefully prices of these festivals do not continue to rise, or the herds of fence jumpers might also start to increase in size.

Behold… the sheer gurner’s terror that is THE CUBE…