The future starts today or so the advertising would have you believe, with such an audacious claim by organisers how could I not attend a festival which has become one of the largest scale festivals in the country in just a few short years. I had been to the previous two Future Music Festival’s and enjoyed myself immensely, I always felt that Future line ups, catered to both the commercial and underground dance fans more so then other festivals.

I thought the line up for this year’s festival was one of the greatest line-ups I’ve ever seen assembled for any festival. There was something here for everyone on the commercial side of things we had the sexy bitch himself David Guetta, house legend Eric Morillo, Empire of the Sun, trance kings Above & Beyond and one of the greatest dance acts of all time The Prodigy. For my personal tastes all things techno and progressive I was treated to arguably the greatest DJ ever, John Digweed, ‘Papa’ Sven Vath – a man who’s reputation for partying almost outweighs his brilliant DJing and Berlin minimal tech masterminds, Booka Shade.

Having being privileged to already see many of these outstanding talents which included John Digweed, Booka Shade and Sven Vath in sideshows the week prior (yes it has been a busy week) I was really excited to see how they would play at a festival and see comparisons between the two.

My future experience was supposed to start at around 3.30pm, or so I thought. After an absolute debacle trying to get in I arrived unfashionably late at 5.15 (turns out media passes aren’t all they’re cracked up to be) and ran straight to John Digweed who was playing a good set initially but nothing too amazing, he lost me in the first hour as the tempo varied without really going anywhere but then just before his second hour he dropped an absolute monster and then it begun. The tempo increased several notches, the vibe was pumping in the tent as the master showed us all how it’s done.

I left Digweed to catch the last part of Franz Ferdinand, a booking which I felt was rather interesting as anyone who is a fan of Franz would generally say they are indie rock however with their new direction substituting guitars for synths I could understand their addition to the lineup. I arrived quite far back at the main stage as it was obviously very busy to catch the Scottish lads close with Lucid Dreams one of their better songs off the new album, although a point must be made here regarding the sound at this stage or more to the point lack of it. I was far back but could barely hear anything and I thought this really killed the vibe and also put me off going back to this stage for the rest of the day due to the poor sound. I returned to catch the final 15 minutes of Digweed who closed with a remix of the phenomenal Robert Babicz track, Dark Flower.

Having seen papa Sven the prior night in what was one of the best sets I’ve seen in recent times I was very excited to see the enigmatic showman yet again. His set at Future Music 2008 was one of my favourite all time festival sets and was something quite special.
Sven kicked off proceedings with that unmistakable sound he has forged over all these years. Techno that would best be described as driving and at times bordering on electro tech but consistently managing to play tracks that have more of a big room feel to them and bring a bit of Ibiza to wherever he plays and it worked so perfectly inside the tent. Some track spotting during the set included an absolute monster by the name of Dustin Zahn – Stranger (To Stability) (Len Faki Podium Mix) a song that perfectly encapsulates Sven’s sound.

As he had done the previous night Sven was constantly engaging with the crowd and it made for an awesome spectacle, he constantly put his hands up to the heavens for the big drops and was constantly hyping the crowd by waving his records throughout the set. Sven proceeded to blow the roof off the tent and within 30 minutes it was stupidly hot inside the tent, so hot in fact I needed to get a breath of fresh air and saw David Guetta all for 2 minutes, not quite my cup of tea. I was later told David Guetta was disappointing, constantly chopping and changing songs rather then ever just letting them play. Having David Guetta play the same time as Sven was actually a blessing in disguise as a lot of people went to see him and it created a bit more space inside the tent.

As Sven’s set drew to a close I thought it set was the standout of the festival and quite special as I shared it with the few thousand people inside the tent, the man needs to return to Australia on a more regular basis to give some of these younguns’ a schooling in how to play techno.

I had originally planned to go and see seminal dance geezers the Prodigy in the early planning stages of my day but after the sound being so poor earlier when I had seen Franz and with the certainty that there would be even more people at the main stage then before, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hear it well. This along with the complete lack of vibe I experienced at the main stage earlier led me to close out my day where it started, the Likes of You tent for none other than Arno and Walter of Booka Shade. I heard from some friends afterwards that the Prodigy was actually quite disappointing and this made me even happier with my decision to see Booka Shade.

I had seen Booka Shade play at the Metro on the previous Thursday night and thought it was honestly one of the best gigs I had been to in some time, EDM or otherwise. Their live show was simply captivating and the unique twist on every song from seeing them live made sure that it was always a new experience.

As they had on Thursday the duo played the majority of their set from songs off their masterpiece -Movements, which made for a great experience with all my friends as we ‘sang’ along to the songs. A few bits of track spotting included favourites such as Night Falls, Mandarine Girl and Darko. As with the Thursday show, their arguably most famous song and my personal favourite _I White Rooms_was the standout and it was one of those unforgettable moments as the day drew to a close.

I left this year’s future feeling as though it was quite possibly the best one I had been to. Absolute quality acts all day made it a standout and hats off to future for really catering to everyone’s tastes with a fantastic lineup, I can only hope future events are quite as enjoyable (no pun intended).