Another edition of Montreal’s legendary month-long winter rave has come and gone again, this year setting attendance records during the coldest month of the year. Igloofest 2012 brought the world’s best house and techno artists to Montreal’s old port, paired with dazzling production and hot wine!
Instead of trying to relay our personal experience at this unique event, we are tak- ing you straight to the artists, to hear what this year’s performing DJ’s had to say about Igloofest.
Our first interview this year was with the legendary house gangster, DJ Sneak. When Sneak got on the decks, he took us back to the golden era of Chicago house with the sounds of Magnetic Records and was quick to warm up the crowd despite below zero temperatures. When we ask him about playing for Igloofest, Sneak described the experience as “Icy hot! I’ve been coming here for 15 years, and it’s good to see a new generation of crowds coming out, and enjoying similar music to what I played then. It’s weird, everything has gone full circle, and I felt like tonight I was play- ing 10-12 years ago. And I’ve never done the outside thing … I played outside at Canada’s Wonderland one time during winter for something, but it wasn’t nearly as cool as this, this is awesome man … I hope I come back.”
One of Sneak’s artists to watch, who opened up for the man himself that night is Paolo Rocco, a Montreal native getting big attention in the global house music com- munity. Paolo said “Igloofest in general, they got it right… the crowd here is nuts, they’re crazy. This is a unique event in a unique city, with the best artists in house music. What else can you ask for?”
House and techno heavyweight and founder of Ovum Recordings Josh Wink was clos- ing that night, and as an Igloofest veteran, Josh said “Always fun! It’s always a plea- sure to play at this festival. I played at the second edition, and I came ill-prepared and didn’t dress right. Tonight I dressed right, and the night was really fun, lots of smiles… and I got to play with my boy Sneak, and it’s just fun to see people go crazy to old music, new music, my music. It’s fun, I had a great time. It was just good vibes, good feelings … 8,000 people smiling their head off while it was snowing, it was awesome. It’s one party that I’m happy to go around the world and say ‘you gotta go check this festival out’.”
Nina Kraviz and Pan-Pot joined Montrealers during the second weekend of Igloofest to celebrate Old Man Winter’s weather. Starting off her set with deep atmospheric sounds, Russian born Nina Kraviz gradually picked up the pace during her two hour set by bringing her crowd to an energizing climax of pure house music.
With an electrifying and radiant energy, Berlin duo Pan-Pot comprised of Tassilo Ippenberger and Thomas Benedix quickly brought the crowd’s energy up to another level with their heavy yet groovy heart-shaking techno sounds. Igloofesters jumped
up in a fiery burst, almost ripping off their snowsuits, making everyone forget about the piercing cold night in Montreal.
The boys had so much fun explaining their first ever experience in the following interview, and ended off with begging Montreal to welcome them back very soon!
So how was your first Igloofest Experience?
Amazing! We were asked just before to describe Igloofest in one word, and we decided to call it “Amazeballs” [laughs]…“freezetesting”.
Do you find the energy of the crowd in subzero weather is different from playing in warmer weather conditions?
Yes of course! The warmer it is when you play, the slower the crowd gets because you would have to keep your body temperature low. Either it’s the cold weather that was making the crowd move like crazy or it’s the Canadians [laughs] … there’s something in their blood! In a positive way of course! It was an amazing experience, really.
Had you heard about Igloofest before? How crazy did you think things might get and were your expectations met or surpassed?
Yes! We first heard about it from Anja Schneider when she played last year’s Ig- loofest, and she told us that for her it was the most amazing experience. And so we were really excited to come here and didn’t really know what to expect because she didn’t give out too much detail, so we checked the internet just today and were like “wow, ten thousand people!”, and as soon as we stepped on the stage we were like “alright, now we get the point … amazeballs!”