Ultra 2013 : Deadmau5's Ultra return

As Deadmau5 told his two-million-strong Twitter horde last week: “Looks like we’re bringing out the Cube one last time for Ultra!” The Cube in question is of course this high-tech structure that the man in the mau5head Joel Zimmerman first developed alongside production and lighting gurus Bionic League and POSSIBLE. Before Saturday’s closing set on the Ultra Main Stage, the Cube had been dormant for a while. Judging by the huge turnout ahead of his 10:45pm slot, with homemade Deadmau5 helmets in every direction, its return is well-overdue.
The moment the Rubik’s Cube was revealed at the centre of Ultra’s vast Main Stage, the atmosphere (which was already red-lining during Kaskade’s feelgood set) reached fever-pitch. With arms raised and glowsticks waving, the crowd lifted. At the centre of it all, surrounded by spinning colours, was the shadowy figure in his dark mouse helmet, only the eyes illuminated.

All around the structure, the thousands of lights pulsed, with the giant ‘U’ logo lit up spectacularly. Camera phones flashed from front to back. In Main Stage terms, Deadmau5’s set had a slower build to Kaskade’s before it, but when the pay-offs came, they were non-stop. A huge blast of pyro from all sides of the stage greeted the drop of Raise Your Weapon, and throughout the show the Cube’s endearingly-goofy graphics went from spaceships to mini-Mau5s to tentacles and circuitry. Each kick came cracking through the sound-system, clear and rattling. While very familiar, it was the middle-section – taking in Ghosts ‘N Stuff, Some Chords and Professional Griefers – that hit hardest with the might of the Ultra’s production behind it. Melodic moments worked too (not for all), with The Veldt leading the way into the closing firework bonanza. (There was one ‘WTF?’ moment of the set, when Zedd popped up beside Deadmau5, shirtless, in braces and a bow-tie.)
“All of the creative teams work closely with us, and some bring their custom content,” Ultra’s designer and technical director James Klein told inthemix as he walked us through the workings of the Main Stage. “Some teams, like Deadmau5’s, invest a lot more than others. This whole stage has been put into a virtual reality visualisation suite, so our guest lighting operators can sit and tune it all in.”
“I had a cool mouse head and a few well rounded ideas,” Zimmerman quipped to inthemix about starting out as Deadmau5. After tonight, we can’t wait to see where that talent for well-rounded ideas next takes him. “I’m 180-percent focused on a headline show at the moment,” he told us. Now we wait…

Credit : In The Mix