- The most dramatic moment at Dimensions 2014 had nothing to do with the festival itself. At around 11 PM on Sunday evening, an enormous thunderstorm hit Punta Christo, the 19th century fort that was hosting the festival for the third year running. At the time, Kaytranada was playing Fort Arena 1, one of several impressive walled dance floors inside the grounds. As he dropped Denzel Curry's "Threatz," a raucous hip-hop track that sent the crowd wild, the skies opened and spewed the heaviest rainfall I've ever seen. For about two minutes the dance floor kept defiantly jumping, revelling in the uniqueness of the moment, and then—bang! The system's generator blew. In the confusion that followed, it emerged that the entire site had been shut down.
Until that moment, Dimensions had been a picture of summer fun. Just an hour earlier, I'd watched a couple—a shirtless guy and a girl with a saggy singlet, both with their eyes barely open—doing ballroom dancing as Jeremy Underground Paris played smooth grooves like Robbie Hill's Family Affair's "Love Is Waiting For You." The mood in the crowd, made up of about 50% of people from the UK and 50% from elsewhere in Europe, was mainly laidback and sun-frazzled across the weekend. The site takes about 20 minutes to walk across if you include the camping area, and people tended to meander in and out of the eight arenas, grabbing reasonably priced drinks (about £3 for a beer) and cracking jokes as they went.
The vibe was breeziest at the festival's boat parties. Around six set sail each day from Thursday to Sunday, and I began my festival with RA's three-hour voyage, which featured Anthony Shakir and Marcel Dettmann. Neither DJ is exactly known for sunshine selections—Shakir tends to play a fast-paced blend of house, techno and electro, and Marcel Dettmann is, of course, one of the world's biggest techno DJs. But something about the mismatch of sights and sounds was especially exciting. Shakir cut through tracks like his own "Arise," smiling and chatting to himself as he threw the crossfader around. And by the time we docked, Dettmann had a delirious group of guys banging on a sheet-metal covering as the new version of Floorplan's "Never Grow Old" smashed from the speakers (the track would be an inclusion on the Best Of Dimensions 2014 compilation, should such a thing exist).
Flux's boat party at dusk on Saturday evening sounded a much brighter tone. Motor City Drum Ensemble's headline set followed party-friendly selections from Dan Shake and Aartekt, and confirmed my feeling that he's one of the best house and disco DJs out there. Girls with glitter-dusted faces and guys with open Aztec-print shirts lost their shit as he filtered through tracks like Seven Davis Jr's "One" and MK's remix of Chez Damier's "Never Knew Love."
Happy music went down especially easily at Dimensions, but it was by no means all that was on offer. On Saturday night D-Bridge led a much-anticipated Exit Records showcase with the type of drum & bass that's kept him at the forefront of the genre. That same evening on the Leisure System stage, DJ Stingray showed how versatile and danceable electro can be, and he was followed by a tidy classic jungle set from Paul Woolford as Special Request. It barely needs mentioning how many different styles the Hessle Audio crew brings to the table, and they didn't disappoint during their joint showcase with L.I.E.S. I also caught Kode9 riffling through footwork tracks as Scratcha DVA hyped the crowd. At the opposite end of the tempo spectrum, Darshan Jesrani played an excellent disco set in place of Metro Area's cancelled live performance.
My favourite set of weekend, though, came from Mala. The London DJ has a deep-rooted connection to both Dimensions and its sister event, Outlook. He said that his Mala In Cuba show at Dimensions last year was possibly the best he'd played (I know at least one person who was reduced to tears by it) and his sets as Digital Mystikz alongside Coki are an annual highlight at Outlook. The lights during his performance were heavily dimmed, adding to an already dread-filled and dramatic atmosphere. Across two hours, he twisted out inconceivably heavy club music, his face occasionally lit up by bursts of flames from the onstage production, while chaos ensued below him.
Mala's set was made all the more potent by the incredible soundsystem he was playing on. Mungo's Hi-Fi, a long-running Glaswegian dub rig, takes pride of place at Dimensions and Outlook, but pretty much every system at the festival was notably clear and punchy. Dimensions put the audio manufacturers—Martin Audio, Void Acoustics, Noise Control Audio etc—they work with right next to the artists on the lineup, so it's clear how seriously they take audio.
Live sets at the festival also sounded strong. Jessy Lanza had a pleasingly tight and simple approach to performing her blend of R&B, disco and house. Warpaint, the US indie-rock four-piece, was a musical outlier but made for a nice palette cleanser among all the club beats. Roy Ayers and his band brought the vibes to the main stage, performing crowd favourites like "Red, Black & Green" and "Everybody Loves The Sunshine."
Two of the weekend's most anticipated live shows—Underground Resistance and Aux 88—were unfortunately cancelled due to the apocalyptic weather on Sunday night. The Clearing (which was co-presented by RA) was drenched by the storm, and after the site-wide shut down, only a handful of stages were allowed to reopen. It felt like people were generally willing to get on with it, and stories of the destruction caused by the storm became an interesting talking point for the rest of the night, but the atmosphere was understandably a bit soured by the conditions. I returned to the site a little after 7 AM for an airport transfer, and the sea and sky had become a single grey mass. A lone raver stumbled out, shirtless and no doubt freezing, but he had the look of someone who'd just had a great weekend.
Photo credits: Dan Medhurst (header, Motor City Drum Ensemble, rain, crowd), Marc Sethi (DJ Stingray)