So, while Bluesfest was running in Ottawa, I did make it to one concert out of the half dozen or so that I would have liked to have seen. At the end of the day, it just was too pricey to go see them all, so I focused on one, and that one was Skrillex.

First off, I want to give some background on my history with Skrillex. I had heard some of his music come up in my online streams before, but never knew who it was. Then, while in Kingston half a year or so ago, I heard some music by them thanks to Laura, a close friend of mine. Since then, I’ve listened to most of the stuff that has been produced by Skrillex.

Laura mistakenly thought that I didn’t like Skrillex because she had played some other music that had some screaming guys in it, and as much as I can be tolerant of all kinds of music, I don’t enjoy listening to people screaming. So for a long time, Laura was confused on what I liked listening to.

I invited Laura and AJ to go see Skrillex at Bluesfest. I ended up buying the Gold seating so that we would for sure have a spot, as Bluesfest events are first come, first serve, and I also liked the idea of having a seat, despite not using it at all once Skrillex started, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We arrived at Bluesfest early and got to see some of Diplo, and all of Pretty Lights, neither of which were all that exciting. We walked around the Lebreton Flats, looking at all the booths, and tried some hot sauce on an insanely hot day.

One disappointment was that the gift cards that I had received as part of the Gold circle experience were for a restaurant that didn’t have a vendor booth at Bluesfest. I had expected to use the cards at the event for supper, and was let down. No where during my purchase did it say that the gift cards wouldn’t be able to be used at Bluesfest. Then we had beaver tails, and I had a super bitter lemonade and I felt better.

Going to our seating area, we hung out, chatted, and listened to music. It wasn’t too bad, though the angle at we were at meant to see what was happening on the main stage meant that the sun blinded us, another Gold circle experience oversight.

Then, as the sun finally went down, Pretty Lights ended and a black curtain covered most of the stage. A weird space ship looking thing was wheeled out, and the stage was set. Laura, AJ and I dashed out of our seats and got as close to the stage as we could.

Skrillex started with a bang, and the energy kept up throughout his entire set. It was a lot of fun, and got pretty crazy. Not even two songs in, I started smelling pot. Half way through the set, the girl next to me took her top off to cool off more. People were crowd surfing, and jumping up and down. It sort of felt like that one scene in the Matrix where everyone in Zion is partying. Various stage people took a hose to the crowd every twenty or thirty minutes to keep us cool. Dozens of people were removed from the venue for various reasons. I was sweating like mad.

It was a great time, and while I sometimes felt out of place, and too darn old to be jumping around with the horde of “kids”, I’m super glad I went.