ULTRA.NYC:
NEW YORKERS GET-DOWN IN CENTRAL PARK

words EMILY TAN shutter COURTESY of PIONEER

The daytime crowd at Ultra.NY...

Guys and Dolls scope each other out

NEW YORK-Summer 2005 was an exciting time for dance music-lovers in New York City. Far from feeling oppressed by the city's stifling heat, clubbers enjoyed a scaled-down version of Ultra Music Festival at New York's hallowed Central Park (located at Rumsey Playfield, the site of Central Park's Summer Stage series of outdoor concerts) on Friday, September 16th from 4:30pm until well past nightfall. Produced by Miami-based Ultra Music Festival (Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes) in conjunction with Ultra Records (Patrick Moxey), Ultra.NY featured one large main stage flanked by two tents of equal size, one named the "Ultra Tent," and the other called the "New York Tent." It is important to note that Ultra.NY may never have happened in Central Park if not for the unrelated efforts of Made Events' Mike Bindra who has, for three years in a row, successfully brought Paul Van Dyk to Central Park SummerStage, thus proving to the authorities running the City Parks Foundation that dance music is a viable art form.

On the main stage, acts featured international DJs Paul Oakenfold and Timo Maas. The main stage's headlining act (and thus the final act of the evening) were the Chemical Brothers, who put on a spectacular performance complete with a visual extravaganza. Unless a DJ happens to be Carl Cox or Richie Hawtin, it is pretty boring watching a pair of DJs/producers doing their thing live and onstage, but the Chemical Brothers aimed high and delivered. Maas, during his set, artfully mixed-in several tracks from his latest album, Pictures (Ultra Records), proving that marriage and fatherhood have not dampened his artistic instincts one bit. The same, however, could not be said of Oakenfold's set. Utilizing essentially the same visual content and astonishingly, playing a number of the same, anthemic tracks he has been known for dropping for the last two, three, four years, Oakey's set veered towards a pop concert in that the audience was spoon-fed familiarity at the expense of innovation. Although Oakenfold's crowd ate his performance up, his set list and visuals left something to be desired. The producer Mylo was entertaining, but the night clearly belonged to the Chemical Brothers.