Annie Mac Presents - Ultra Music Festival 2012 - March 24

Better than: Morning radio After spending what felt like 24 hours at Ultra being sandwiched in between shirtless men and women in their underwear, we took a breath of fresh air and headed over to the Mixmag Annie Mac Presents tent for most of Saturday. In addition to her two shows and...

By Jessica Gentile

March 26, 2012

[
        {
          "name": "GPT - Billboard - Slot Inline - Content - Labeled - No Desktop",
          "component": "16971022",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "15769925",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "16575154",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "GPT - Rectangle 2x - Slot Auto-select - Labeled",
          "component": "15782206",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "16575154",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "GPT - Leaderboard to Tower - Slot Auto-select - Labeled",
          "component": "15782207",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        }
      ]

Better than: Morning radio

After spending what felt like 24 hours at Ultra being sandwiched in between shirtless men and women in their underwear, we took a breath of fresh air and headed over to the Mixmag Annie Mac Presents tent for most of Saturday.

In addition to her two shows and touring all over the world, the BBC Radio 1 host holds a popular dance party overseas called "Annie Mac Presents" in which she manages to stay consistent with a steady lineup of quality DJs and performers. So, spending time at her tent at Ultra was a no-brainer. The day started off with Jackmaster (UK), everyone's new favorite DJ, and ended with the lovely miss Annie Mac herself.

It was nice to see a stage of DJs who clearly love one another's music feeding off of one another's sets, all while being happy to be there.

One of the advantages of being at a smaller stage during Ultra is that everyone there is a little more focused. A lot of times the bigger stages have several lost festivalgoers who lose track of what's going on due to the overwhelming amount of people, drugs, and loud music. I saw several Annie Mac "Woop Woop" T-shirts and Ed Banger T-shirts (for the Busy P lovers) and noticed that a lot of the fans knew most of the songs being played. It is more of a (very) large intimate party. The energy became more and more intense as the night went on. Everyone was having fun together!

We happened to walk in during Nadastrom's techno/moombahton/cumbia/mashup of awesome. They played a ton of their own music and started to pick up the pace for the day. By the time they were finished, people were in full party mode for Gesaffelstein. He was followed by Brodinski who is just as fun to watch as he is to hear. He has a great "DJ dance," and it is clear he absolutely loves every song he plays.

Sinden really went in with the house music, making neon club kids shuffle, and had superfans of his label, Grizzly, there in front row. Right before Annie Mac went on, Dillon Francis played a set, and the kids went absolutely mad.

Annie Mac is a wonderful music selector and a great curator. Not only was everyone loving her DJ set but she also managed to put together an intimate and energetic stage that worked perfectly. The fact that she had a crowd there during Avicii's surprise Madonna stunt proves it all.

Miss Mac has done her presents party before in Miami, but she took a step up this year for Ultra Music Festival, and it was, if you will, perfect.

Line up (last to first)

Annie Mac

Dillon Francis

Busy P

Switch

Sinden

Brodinski

Gessafillstein

Nadastrom

Tensnake

Jackmaster

New Times on Facebook | County Grind on Facebook | Twitter | e-mail us |

KEEP NEW TIMES FREE... Since we started New Times, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of South Florida, and we'd like to keep it that way. Your membership allows us to continue offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food, and culture with no paywalls. You can support us by joining as a member for as little as $1.