Line-up that comes front-loaded with top-dollar acts like
Tiesto,
New Order,
Kraftwerk,
David Guetta and
Armin van Buuren, it’s fair to say 2012 will be the biggest year yet for Miami’s Ultra Music Festival. Despite the gargantuan, no-expenses-spared bill, one dance music superstar who’s missing is
Deadmau5. Not that he’s losing sleep about it.
In a Christmas stream with fans from what looks like his plush underground lair, the producer admitted he’s no great fan of how the colossal festival does things. His main gripes, it seems, are Ultra’s exclusivity contracts that prevent its acts from playing other gigs during Miami Music Week, the high ticket prices and, well, festivals in general.
“Ultra to me is like the definition of insanity,” he says. “It’s doing the same fucking thing every year, expecting different results every time. Why would you go every year? 595 fucking dollars for a ticket? Wow, someone’s laughing to the bank. I love Miami, but I hate these fucking festival things. I would rather spend 50 or 100 dollars to see my favourite act rather than doshing out 600 bucks to see all these fucking people, most of which are playing at the same fucking time.”
The next ten-or-so minutes touch on the “fucked up” exclusivity contracts, the “shit that flies around” when you assemble a line-up of big egos, the tyranny of festival timetabling, disingenuous “children” turned promoters, why
Daft Punk won’t do festivals…and so on and so forth. Basically, it’s textbook Deadmau5, with plenty of sagely observations in amongst the F-bombs.international news posted
On New Year’s Eve, however, Deadmau5 took to Facebook with a different tack, admitting 2011 has been a difficult year. “Anyway, just gunna wrap up these shows this year n try to have a little fun,” he wrote. “I’ve been dealing with severe depression and anxiety all year. Taking a long time off after my birthday to hopefully get it sorted out before I say or do anything more stupid than I already have.”
