http://www.ultramusicfestival.com

SPRING 2002
ULTRA 4- MIAMI BEACH
2002 is gearing up to be a great year in dance and music. The 4th annual Ultra festival in Miami was an amazing success with 30,000 industry elite and dance/ music lovers uniting for a Hot day and night under the sun with stellar performances by Crystal Method, Paul Van Dyk, Carl Cox, Paul Oakenfold, Deepdish, Planet B, Christopher Lawrence, Bad Boy Bill, Kevens and so many others including a special guest appearance by Gorillaz front man Del The Funky Homosapien. The Ultra stage was top notch with a 60 foot LED video wall that was from another Planet, all you could do was stare into its infinite colors for hours and be mesmerized by the magnitude of the insane video stimulation courtesy of no other then OVT visuals and one of America’s best video artists, Vello Virkhas. Hats off to Vello for an unbelievable video show…watching Vello’s visuals during Paul Van Dyk’s flawless set was something that will go down in festival history as one of the most amazing moments ever.

The Club Space stage was Non-stop adrenalin as every set from Deepdish to Tall Paul kept us dancing for 12 hours straight. One of the biggest highlights was the Contagious drum & Bass tent which boasted the biggest D & B/ Jungle line-up to ever hit the USA shores. All we could say was wow! as we watched amazing set after set. Goldie kicked us into high gear and Roni Size left us wanting more…Andy C, Bad Company, Krust, Ed Rush should we say more as the list went on and on! DJ Marky from Brazil is no doubt one of the best Jungle DJ’s to ever hit the decks and Diesel Boy who never misses a beat is crowned once and for all the best D & B DJ in America. Let’s also not forget about the queen of jungle, the sexy DJ Rap, who left the tables steaming after her amazing tag-team set that left the entire crowd of 5000+ in a musical frenzy.

The Coolworld Revolution stage was the only stage which featured live bands and pressed the envelope of diversity with several different musical styles and performance artists offering something different for those that wanted to stimulate there musical curiosities. The stage had an amazing view of the Miami Bay and kicked into high gear with a memorable set by Florida’s live house group Prophecy. Perry Farrel, aka DJ Peretz the lead singer for Jane’s Addiction, took the prize for best entrance as he and his entourage entered the site by boat, docking right by the Coolworld stage and just in time for his 3pm DJ set. He took to the decks immediately and you could hear shouts from the crowd yelling go Perry go!

Live band Kosheen, who’s energetic D & B set was definitely worth watching played to a wall to wall crowd that wanted to catch a peek at what made this group one of the hottest new D & B acts winning best new album of the year at Dancestar. Surprise sets came from a live performance by Planet B, a new group with a new sound that took the stage with sheer confidence and energy complete with Pyro, theatrics and more ...its too bad that they went on the same time as Oakenfold as they were quite good and something different from the norm and more people should have caught them...I’m sure we’ll here a lot from Planet B in the future. Another group that really rocked the stage was Kevens and his live D & B set. This is one act that needs know introduction to Florida as he is pure magnetic energy with a positive spin that took us on a spiritual journey to the next level. Other solid performances came from Chris Lawrence & Bad Boy Bill who always know how to keep the crowd going. Every arena was on fire and overall this was by far the best Ultra to date. For those of you that were there you know that no words could describe the energy and the excitement that was this years Ultra…can’t wait till next year!!

Review By Dr. Hook