Check Out Photos from the EB Festival in Warsaw 2015
On Friday, the EB team hit Warsaw to kick off our spring festival season. Our 2015 visit to the Polish capital included two concerts, the first of which took place at the Palladium with TMTS star Adi Ulmansky, Norwegian indie pop group Highasakite, and Joseph Mount’s globetrotting band of merry musicmakers, Metronomy. After that, we headed over to the Basen nightclub, which is built in a former YMCA swimming pool, to work up a sweat to DJ sets by BBC host and ABC columnist Gilles Peterson and house champion Motor City Drum Ensemble.
You’ll get the full story of what went down at EB’s Warsaw festival in the following weeks and months as we reveal live concert footage of all the performances and publish exclusive backstage interviews with this year’s stars, but you can get an idea of the vibe from the photo gallery we’ve compiled below.
Hours before the festivities began, we teamed up with the LeafAudio crew to teach a lucky bunch of people how to build their own mini-synth.
When the sun went down, it was time to head over to the Palladium, which is located in the metropolitan heart of central Warsaw.
Excited festivalgoers started to line up outside the Palladium at 2 P.M. on the day of the festival, a full 6 hours before doors opened.
As the crowd entered, a local DJ duo known as Wah Wah warmed up the atrium with tasteful underground selections. Early attendees sipped drinks and purchased silk-screened shirts that were handmade at the venue to the seductive sounds of top-knotch beatmakers like Shinichi Atobe.
Wah Wah took a break as Israeli up-and-comer Adi Ulmansky took the stage, alone and fearless.
She wound through several cuts from her forthcoming EP, including “Snow,” “Blood On Your Hands,” “Voices,” and “Was It You?” Ulmansky is a tactile performer who programmed her beats live with a laptop, keyboard, and Akai MPD26, which meant that her sound effects were occasionally the slightest bit off time. For us, that was the most endearing part of her appearance, because it proved that she wasn’t letting the technology do the work for her.
Once Adi closed out with “Was It You,” Highasakite took the stage.
The headlining band, Metronomy, stormed onstage in front of a completely packed crowd.
Blount and his cohorts had the audience jumping and cheering, so they were in the perfect mindset to dogpile the Basen nightclub once the band bid the crowd adieu.
Basen’s opening acts Diffriend and Oxford Drama took charge of the audio while the crowd filtered in.
Once the club had just about reached capacity, Gilles Peterson assumed control of the decks alongside his trusty MC Earl Zinger. His set was predictably eclectic and worldly, and included “Cuba Electornica,” a track from the album that Peterson worked on with the UK dubstep don, Mala In Cuba. The sound system couldn’t quite handle all that bass.
Motor City Drum Ensemble closed out the night with an absolutely ecstatic set of soulful jams. Around 5:30 in the morning, he started to close out his set by taking 12″s out of his bag and brandishing them in front of the dance floor to signal that this would be the last track of the night. But each time he played a “final” record, the people cheered for more.
Stay tuned for EB.TV live videos of this year’s performances, exclusive interviews, and, of course, three more shows. The next EB Festival is this Friday, March 6, in Bratislava.
Published March 02, 2015. Words by EB Team.