Melt festival : the crowd intelligence never stops the music

This is the story of the drumming crowd, it happened on sunday, Gemini Stage around 3am, when Tiga finished his dj set.

After the music stops, spontaneous meltdown of sounds in the tent,
It all started like this :

500 people begin to play on the tent with every stuff they have
no organisation, no leader
only independant people part of a crowd with only one rule : never stop the music

seen from an other angle
some dance, some play, some try to follow a pattern, a rythm
other just play

back in the crowd
play if you want
play what you want
try to find a rythm
try to complete the sound

some are able to regroup and play together
but the security begins to block the pillars

You begin to feel more united because you are facing the same problem as your crowdmate, they want you to stop and to go, while rule number one is : never stop the music. So you have to react, and as one guy, the crowd resists, goes as slow as possible, finding any other possibility to continue the sound by any mean, and to leave the place as late as possible. From this moment I knew it would take us a long time to go from the stage to the exit, and that I would have a really nice time.

5 minutes global music before reaching the stairs
Here you see the pressing realised by the security, who created some individual shows of people crossing the line, running in front of the security before joining back the crowd, letting slowly the security do its job.

in the stairs
singing we are your friends
sound evolving
security organised
tent protected, out of reach
pressure towards the exit
we play on the metal gears

from the stairs to the exit
on the way, no real possibility of music else then clapping and singing
stopping at every table and place to make some noise.
Look at the smiles on their faces.    

2:32 in the exit tent, putting and enjoying the metal again after the walk. one last time and we’ll be gone
3:28 finally outside : show must go on
4:09 the oil barrel is ready : we are not going to be attracted by the sleepless floor, let’s continue our own creation.

With 20 people we kept on playing, organising slowly the position, the barrel in the midle as a semi lead, the bin guys around it, and some guy created a small electro sound that they mastered really quickly. We followed, eachother, finally beginning to hear what each of us was playing, we began to be organised again. Some people leading, one after the other, some people teaming to play the same tune. I discovered later my bin was full of glass, and if I would kick it it would produce a nice glassbreaking effect that would fit with the high electro sound. Other just variated their sticks to play on their bins : beercup, woodstick, beer etc..

You can’t see me on any of the video, but I was in every guy’s eyes, I could recognize the sound I was producing every time the camera came close to it. I was part of the whole, and followed its rules carefully, until the end. I didn’t talk to anybody, but I connected with a lot of you, the music, the dancing, the gathering against the security made us follow a simple mission : never stop the music and stay together.
From 500 people to 50 to 30 to 20, the collective spirit remained together about this first and unique mission. We knew at any time we would stop, it would be over, and we followed.
It finishes around 5:30 when a guy from the logistic came to us and asked us to stop, he was really pissed. I went to the sleepless floor and the magical link that once united us was gone. We were just dancers and normal people again, but with a wonderful adrenaline rush and souvenir when  you finally reach your pillow.

Here is a small present for my musical friends, my best moment of the Week End, Big wheel : Paul Kalkbrenner – Sky & sand  :