The first photos from Future Music Festival's wet and wild weekend

The Future Music Festival juggernaut fired into life over the weekend, beginning with a soaked-through day at Brisbane’s Doomben Racecourse. While the rain came down hard, the festival-hardened embraced the mud through afternoon sets from the likes of Rudimental, Super8 & Tab, Kill The Noise and Azealia Banks. The Warrior’s Dance tent kicked into gear with Kill The Noise and Feed Me’s ‘Teeth’ live rig, which pulsed in time to the shuddering, bass-heavy soundtrack. Later, the Boys Noize ‘Skull’ was wheeled on for another sweaty, heaving set of the producer’s own material. As the man himself succinctly put it on Twitter: “Brisbane was a dirty mother!”

the thing that made me smile the most today was watchin u guys jump and splash around in the mud FUCK IT!! I love u guys!!

— ǝsıou ǝɥʇ ןןıʞ (@killthenoise) March 2, 2013

Got absolutely effed by the rain today on stage. You were heroes for putting up with that storm instagr.am/p/WWUJQbTfZO/

— Ellie Goulding (@elliegoulding) March 2, 2013

Unfortunately, the monsoonal weather overwhelmed the Cocoon Heroes arena, with Magda’s early set called off. “The stage was flooded,” she announced. An impromptu move to the Racecourse grandstand saw the remaining Cocoon recruits – Richie Hawtin, Sven Vath, Ricardo Villalobos and Seth Troxler – playing to an up-close crowd of techno fanatics.

What happens in Brisbane at the Future Music Festival when your stage is closed because if flooding?!..........

— Richie Hawtin (@richiehawtin) March 2, 2013

....You move your dance floor into the restaurant in the bandstands & ROCK IT with @sethtroxler #Villalobos & @svenvaeth BOMB SETS FROM ALL

— Richie Hawtin (@richiehawtin) March 2, 2013

For many, the big moment of Brisbane came with The Prodigy’s incendiary closing set, which turned the Warrior’s Dance arena into an unhinged sea of moshing bodies. Their Law, Firestarter, Breathe, Voodoo People: the classics came thick and fast. Despite the last-minute cancellation of Avicii, a silver lining came in the form of an extended set from Hardwell on the Future Music stage. With two hours to do his thing, the Dutchman kept the big moments coming.

From the stormy skies of Brisbane, it was then on to Perth, where the weather proved more festival-friendly. Given just how seriously they take bass music in the West, the Warrior’s Dance arena was in full effect (the night before, Borgore, Kill The Noise and Feed Me had all played late at the Bowler Bar after-party in Brisbane). Undercover in the Wake Your Mind arena, Cosmic Gate was in euphoric form, while the Cocoon Heroes line-up was summed up like this in the forums by ITMer cizza: “Holy shit-balls, what a day. Cocoon Heroes was the place to be. Everyone there absolutely smashed it.” Then, once again, there was the battle of the headliners: The Prodigy and Hardwell bringing it home.

Future Music Festival’s second weekend includes stops in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne – check out the first photos below.