Flying to Miami
Usual suspects
Well we're here... Miami 2007! Of course, like most years it all began with a liquid breakfast at Heathrow's departure lounge pub. We might as well start as we mean to go on eh! Working through a few pints, out motley crew makes the unsteady stumble to the departure gate. We're in good company too. A quick scan of the bleary eyed queue reveals a host of the usual WMC suspects and a few old friends... as well as Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold and our Miami cover star Robert Smith from The Cure, instantly recognisable by his bird's nest coiffeur.
The flight zips by. Most snatch a few hours sleep in between catching a couple of choice films like The Departed. Or watching Cartoon Network.
Once we're spat out at the other end, it's late afternoon and the Miami sun is still blazing. There's barely time to drop our bags and have a cow's lick of a wash before hitting the mean streets of Miami for our first night of partying.
Pop tarts and shots
First stop, then, Automatic Slims for Pop Tarts, Lee Burridge's yearly WMC piss-take where it's strictly 0% house, instead favouring 70s and 80s anthems all the way. Cheap booze and cheesy tunes provide the perfect tonic for jet lag - Pop Tarts has become the place to start WMC with Bedrock's Neil Quigley and Prologue's Paul Louth both in agreement. We catch up with both as Coyote Ugly modelled bar staff dance on the bars and pour lurid coloured shots.
But there's no sticking around. With Rod Stewart asking us if we think he's sexy (a definite no on that one), we're on the move again, heading downtown to The Pawn Shop Lounge to catch John Digweed and Mstrkrft - both playing as part of their joint Diamond Tour of the States. By half twelve the atmosphere is heaving with US Diggers' fanatics. So much so that the Bedrock man cant move for photo or autograph requests. It's not all chin stroking and trainspotting when he steps up to the decks though. The place fires up as Diggers starts weaving through the sort deep, darkly melodic epics only he seems to play. As he toughens things up with pulsing underground techno, the heart of the Pawn Shop is awash in a wave of cheers and grooving bodies Ð the place is truly going off. The real stars of the show, however, are found on the floor's edges with a quartet of US breakers battling it out. Acrobatic backflips, rhythmic windmills, crazy caterpillars and all sorts of freaky assed gravity defying dance moves keeping us entertained. Heading to the second room, we catch Mstrkrft dishing out their unique grunged up disco punk and dirty, quirky electro. It funky, twisted and filthy as sin and there's a huddle of revellers getting down in approval.
As for us, we neck several paint-strippingly strong JD & cokes, hook up with SOS's Demi, throw a few more shapes to Diggers marathon before flagging a yellow taxi and heading back to the hotel via a pizza pit stop. A solid start... roll on Wednesday.