Thursday I decided to take it easy. With no plans set in stone during the day, we just started walking. We ended up at The Presidential, a hotel on Collins, for a free day party. D:Fuse was just getting started as we arrived. I've seen him time and time again and have never been blown away. I was just in the mood to sit down, relax, and hear some tunes. Surprised as I could be, he blew us away. It is a totally different experience seeing a DJ on stage with 1000+ people packed inside a club versus seeing the same DJ in a hotel lobby with 20 other people. He was playing an array of music I have never heard, and only dropped one tune I recognized which happened to be one of my all time favorites, Derrick May - Strings Of Life. He turned an average DJ set you could hear anywhere during Winter Music Conference into an inspiring performance with his electronic drum kit.
After he was finished, we overheard a friend talking about Digitialism playing at the Scion Party down a few blocks so we made our way down to the Raleigh Hotel. Greeted at the door with a bag of goodies (hat, stack of CDs, t-shirts), we headed to the gorgeous pool area and the sandy pit in front of the stage. The place was clearing out by the time we made it down there but we enjoyed their set and headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up. It was time to go downtown for the Get Physical party. I had high expectations for this, as this was my favorite party of 2007. The door staff was very welcoming, noticing my press pass before I even got to the door and asked for my name. They let us on in and this is where the disappointment began. Even as late in the evening that we arrived, Studio A was barely 1/3 full. That normally wouldn't bother me but again, it was another night of train wrecks. Hoping and praying the night would get better, we sat through 2 hours of mess up, after mess up, after mess up. No one is perfect, I understand this, but there is no excuse to be so messed up that you can't even mix two records together without having to cut one completely off and bring a new one in. We could not take any more so again, we walked down to Pawn Shop for SOS/Kompact. The line was down the street so I knew that was a good sign. Zel McCarthy from Plexi PR gave me my tickets and a photo pass so I wouldn't have any problems covering the event. It was nice to be welcomed with such helpfulness and it didn't hurt that he had a huge smile on his face every time I caught a glimpse of him. The SOS crew was keeping the dance floor moving but there was no way I could miss Gui Boratto in the back room. It was packed in there! I weaseled my way up to the front to snap some photos and didn't leave that spot until he was finished. He is a master at what he does and I loved every minute of it.
