Freezing Man Festival 2011

Last Saturday, January 29th, Freezing Man Music Festival came to Edmonton. When I say it came here...I mean it was born and invented right here. The first (annual, hopefully) Canadian version of the wildly popular Californian Burning Man Festival featured many electronica/dance/indie artists, and local DJs. These included Dragonette, Stars, Shout Out Out Out Out, Chromeo, Major Lazer, Broken Social Scene and Kaskade (who unfortunately did not get to perform due to illness).
I think that Dragonette was one of the most surprising performances to me, not that they were the greatest in my opinion, but that I was surprised at the lead vocalists engery. I had them pegged as a couple-hits-band, only on the radio because they could be. But I have to say their set may have changed my view.
Two of the best performances during the entire night were Broken Social Scene and Chromeo, two of the largest names at the festival.
Chromeo's music knew how to reach out to the partiers, extreme fans, and dancers in the crowd, while BSS's many members controlled the audience with their take on indie rock, with more intense instrumentals (especially during their last song, and my very favourite from them, Meet Me in the Basement, which has no vocals)

It was held at the Edmonton Expo Centre (formerly Northlands Agricom) and was completely indoors. The doors opened at 3pm and ran all the way until the wee hours of the morning (about 2am was when Major Lazer finished). It was amazing to see all the different acts in one night, and especially to see all the different fans that came out to the festival. There was everyone from "metal-heads", to "indie" girls, ravers, punks and everything in between.

Not only was there music to keep you entertained, with two stages: the A stage for the "main acts" listed above, as well as B stage for the local artists that would perform during set up and take down of A stage, but there were also 4 carnival rides that made up "Sustainival" - a "green" carnival, where the rides would be powered by such things as French fry grease, a fashion show, and drinks available from doors open!

The only issue I found was with the actual organization of the night. It was difficult to tell at first in which hall in the centre that the even was being held...and then once found we had to walk back outside in order to line up for the security/bag check, and then after get in yet another line for coat-check. Also, about 1200+ people were excepted to attend, yet the entire venue only had two places to eat open, one burger place and one pizza place. This meant that it took over 1 1/2 hours to get food, missing at least 1 possibly two acts. After paying quite the hard-earned money for tickets, and not being allowed to bring in outside food/drink, I didn't expect the long and tiring wait. With a few slight changes to this the festival can definitely have a cool (lame pun intended) future ahead!