More than 80,000 people. That’s how many showed up for Movement 2009 in Detroit, which must make the festival the biggest one of it’s kind in the United States, if not North America (how many people make it out to Mutek? Not sure).
The pre-event buzz on my favorite dance site Resident Advisor was big; some PW readers might be shocked to hear that a festival set in the apparently dying Motorcity is well-regarded internationally and attracts attendees from around the globe (including a French bloke sitting behind me on the plane from DCA). GM and Chrysler may have gone bust but one Detroit industry is alive and well and people are snapping up it’s exports all over the world. Don’t know what I’m talking about? I’m talking about techno, whose origins can be traced back to Detroit in the 80s.
Dancing to an electronic beat may have never really taken off properly in the USA, but the rest of the planet loves it, and Detroit is the respected birthplace of the… movement (sorry, had to). Formerly known as the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, Movement is in its ninth year now and, happily, it’s gone from strength to strength — this year’s attendance was up about 10,000 from last year. I hadn’t been down to Hart Plaza and the festival since the early 2000s (the last time I was there was as a petitioner, earning money for every signature I got and meeting electronic music fans from all over — I also got to see Innercity live!) but this year I was home for Memorial Day weekend and a trip downtown was inevitable. Last minute arrangements worked out so off I went, curious friends in tow, to bask in the Michigan sun and revel with a crowd of techno-heads, localites, and on-lookers.
DEMF was free for its first few years, which made it unique among the few festivals that are put on on this scale. It’s no longer free, but a weekend pass bought on the internet, good for three days, was only $50, a bargain considering the number of stages (four), the number of acts (80), and some of the big names in attendance (Carl Cox, Ellen Allien, Carl Craig, Benga, RJD2, Kevin Saunderon, Derrick May, Benny Benassi, Audion). By comparison, two-day tickets to New York’s Electric Zoo festival, held over the Labor day weekend, are $225! Multiple pre-parties, post-parties, and just parties, turn Detroit into a dance-music fan’s overwhelming buffet — so much to choose from in such a short time, including the Prodigy at the official pre-party on Friday night. This year’s festival came just before the Mutek festival in Montreal, and hardcore fans could finish up Movement, pop across the border to Windsor, Ontario, and get specially discounted trains to Montreal to keep the party going for a few more days. That wasn’t an option for me, not this year anyway, but it’s nice to see these festivals, and perhaps the Canadian train system, seemingly working together to make life a little easier for the people, and in an eco-friendly way to boot.
I got down to the concrete playground that is Hart Plaza around mid-day that first day. It’s built on the Detroit river in the city’s downtown, next to the Renaissance Centre, which is GM’s world headquarters, and Cobo Hall, site of the North American International Motor Show. The blue of the Detroit river is on one side, with Windsor’s green parks across the way; on the other side are Detroit’s skyscapers, a reminder of the past, when Detroit was the fourth biggest city in America (did you know that Detroit had the third most skyscrapers in the country? You do now. Now it has the most abandoned ones, and was the first city to have such a thing as an abandoned skyscraper — true facts!). I couldn’t help but think about all that, as well as the recent economic troubles of the city and state, as I rolled up. There’s always been an air of defiance in these parts, and there still is. In some ways, an event like Movement seems to fit into that air — a techno-festival in a nation where rock, R ‘n’ B, and country dominate the commercialized airwaves, set in the unfashionable flatlands of the Midwest –you know, flyover country. But there’s an industrial grit to the town that makes it stand out in a different way to places like Chicago. Plus, let’s not forget that this is the same city that Robocop was set in! I wonder if techno, and it’s focus on the future, had anything do with that idea?
Things were a little slow during the first opening hours, though the sunshine was glorious and the beats were already loud. I took the time to wander around the site and eye things up. The main Vitamin Water stage dominated a sunken concrete ampitheatre, while the Red Bull Music Academy and Beatport Pacha stages were set up by the river. The Made in Detroit stage rounded things out and was set up in the subterranean gallery — it ended up being the loudest stage of the event, with the sounds ricocheting around the concrete chamber and deafening all who passed through, or at least it seemed that way.
The crowd started to thicken up as the day wore on; an eclectic mix of the average looking, hipsters, circa mid-90s rave punks (they still sell those baggy bondage trousers??), goth-teens, manga-girls in day-glow furry boots, low-key insiders, and the Detroit Police. They were joined by vendors, activists, petitioners (I know why you were there!), local tourists, and a scary Red Bull truck playing some hard drum-n-bass and dubstep. Kids and babies were also in attendance, thankfully protected with ear-plugs, a little reminder that this music isn’t new any more, which makes it weirder that it’s still alien to many.
First act on my radar was Drumcell, playing some hard tech sounds on the main stage. Things were good but the stage and ampitheatre were just too big and empty at that point, so I moved on to the concrete pyramid opposite the Red Bull stage to take in the ambient washes of noise from the Sight Below, the only time I saw a guitar at the festival. His atmospheric sounds would make good comedown music but were a little low-key for my mates to start out with. We headed over to hear SF’er Nikola Baytala on the Beatport stage instead. A larger crowd had gathered there, possibly because it’s the greenest part of the plaza, with the stage facing the river and allowing the crowd to spread out onto the grass and under the trees to enjoy Baytala’s more soulful sounds. It was easy to feel some mellow vibes in this setting, and dancing in the open was a treat in this park-like place in the middle of the city. Baytala’s two hour set was followed by Heidi, who’s pretty much a local — she may have left for London, and she may live in Berlin now, but she could see her hometown of Windsor from the stage. That could be why she seemed to have as good a time as anyone in the crowd during her set — it’s always nice to see a DJ who dances. Heidi’s hands-in-the-air moments were replicated by the thick crowd that formed to check her out.
It was time to go underground for a bit and see what was happening in the gallery at the Made in Detroit stage. Things were decidedly murky down there, murky and smokey, which made for a perfect place for all the rave- and goth-teens to hang out and compare day-glo clothing/heavy black eye shadow and make new friends. Some of the kids wore gas-masks; I’m not sure if that was a condemnation of the smoke effects or if it had something to do with Amyl Nitrate. Or maybe they were afraid of catching swine flu? That’s probably what it was. 
Detroit native Shaun Reeves, another DJ who’s moved on to Berlin, was on stage playing some funky house to the masses dancing in the pit below. Lack of earplugs made that cavern a bit too deafening for me, plus there were so many overlapping acts that stopping for too long in any one place didn’t seem like a good option, so we moved on. Next stop was Lusine on the Red Bull stage. Many of the Red Bull acts, including Lusine, were playing live rather than DJing; he’s also one of the acts on local label Ghostly International, who are celebrating their 10 year anniversary this year and who brought seven acts to Movement. Lusine’s live work gave his sound an organic feel that made the grooves easy to get into and appreciate from the massive concrete pyramid in front of the stage. Kate Simko followed, another Ghostly act enjoying a day out in the sun while playing live versions of her deep and melodic house and techno sounds. She looked a little dwarfed by the stage but she seemed to be enjoying herself.
Things got a bit more international later on. Damian Lazarus, the main man at Crosstown Rebels, was DJing at the Beatport stage so we moseyed on over to gawp at him from the back of a large crowd. Movement has enough clout to attract some big names, which makes it all the more fun for attendees who are coming from further afield. In Detroit this is apparently a source of tension, with some local artists advocating for more local acts at a local event. I hope they can strike a nice balance between time for the Detroit locals and time for DJs and acts from elsewhere — events like this are so rare in the States anyway that it would be a shame for them to get too parochial. Maybe the natives don’t realize how much out-of-towners like me need a big event like Movement to get our dance music fix? Local acts are great, but the presence of acts like Lazarus surely has something to do with the big number of attendees the festival is able to attract. Anyway, that’s my addition to that debate.
Lazarus himself played some dirty sleazy sounds that went well with his slightly seedy Blue-Oyster-bar-in-Police-Academy look. I was actually expecting his selection to be a bit more leftfield instead of straight electronic, as that’s what I’ve heard on his podcasts, but for this set he kept the BPM’s high and things stayed nice and dancey. Last act for me that night had to be Steve Bug, as I had a wedding to get to in the ‘burbs. Bug, one of the rare German Germans, is known for his minimal techno sound and he didn’t disappoint on that front, yet still managed to keep things nice and bouncy at the main stage, which had filled up by the evening. He was to be followed up by the dubby sounds of New York’s Francois K and then England’s superstar DJ Carl Cox. It was shame to miss ‘em both, especially Francois K as I’ve wanted to catch him for a while. Biryani and wedding cake beckoned though, so we made our way up the Lodge freeway and out to the West-side.
Stay tuned for Movement 200, part 2!
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