5 Things They'll Never Show
You In The Aftermovie
By: Eugene Carolus
For all the week-long hype
surrounding the Ultra South Africa aftermovie a few months ago and the
impending social media explosion upon the release of the Tomorrowland and Ultra
Miami aftermovies soon to follow, we couldn't help but feel a sense of severe
amnesia, whether or not induced by one too many tequila shots, from having
attended these events and not remembering the crowd being 90% hot girls raging
at full capacity for 7 hours straight. For all the impressive video editing,
colour correction and impossible camera angles, there's now such a disparity
between what's depicted in an aftermovie and what you're actually experiencing
in reality that we've taken it upon ourselves to list some things a potential
festival attendee commenting in excited all caps in a YouTube comment thread is
not being made aware of in the aftermovie.
Yes, people actually sweat:
Now, being a human walking around in
a fully functioning meat suit you can expect things to get a bit hot and sweaty
when in a crowd of scantily clad attendees packed tighter than a can of Lucky
Star sardines, all gyrating and writhing in a collective, sexless mass of limbs
that would even make Satan gasp. Don't go into it expecting everyone to look
like they've stepped off a Dove commercial set, you'll have your fair share of
contact with the guy in front of you's bacne and unshaved armpits that'll have
you having severe flashbacks to your mother's personal hygiene lectures in the
middle of a Hardwell set.
Irritable and territorial gym
bros
We've all seen them, riding into the
event parking lot with a tub of protein shake powder and creatine on the back
seat blasting psytrance on a budget sound system. Thing is, in a crowd
situation you might as well be dancing next to a nuclear reactor strapped to a
pair of legs. So much as brush against these fellas or look at their girls
while squirming your way back through the thicket to your spot in the crowd and
they will explode in a fit of testosterone, faded tribal tattoos and WWE one
liners straight out of 2005. Like chill, I'm not that into girls whose last
Facebook update was about how The Fault In Our Stars gave them so many
feels and a fake Marilyn Monroe quote tattooed on their wrists.
Queues, queues everywhere!
Going to festival? Then prepare to be
in a queue at some point along your journey because there's no escaping those
long, snake-like manifestations of impatience. Whether you're at bar annoyed
because of that one friend who didn't buy a drink with everyone else earlier
and now you're missing the fifth play of Animals that day or whether
you're in a queue outside a blue portable toilet wondering if the last person
who went in passed out in there, you're going to wait. So engage with your
fellow queue mate in no matter how drab a conversation you can because shit is
about to get real. Wow, that was a terrible pun.
"EDM girls are so
hot!" lol
Screw what you've seen in the
aftermovie, the majority of the human population aren't that hot in real life,
despite what that one good angle they keep using on their Instagram might have
you believe. It's easy to assume that you'll be partying it up with Victoria's
Secret models when only a certain archetype is depicted dancing with hair flowing
in 120 frames per second. Reducing the colourful South African crowd to a
single demographic is a downright shame. Yes, yes, it's more marketable that
way but the amount of confused foreigners commenting on the Ultra South Africa
aftermovie about the lack of black people in attendance kind of raised a valid
point, despite how ignorant and uneducated those comments were. There were lots
of black, indian and coloured people there, something you definitely wouldn't
see at your traditional EDM event locally, which is great for the scene, why
not show that to the world a bit more?
"Did you see that!"
"No, I didn't"
Yes, girls on shoulders are a
problem. Great for the DJ and camera, but not so great for me standing directly
behind you. Being in a packed crowd, it's not like I have much alternative to
resort to when you decide to form a
human giraffe in the middle of a concert. We're left having to hope someone
from the back has an empty plastic cup and a primary school cricket team
bowling history or that your boyfriend skipped upper body workouts this month
and wears out sometime in the next ten minutes. EDM crowds are a fussy bunch
and so help you if you block our view of Steve Aoki fiddling with another knob.