Melt! Festival highlights

We had a pretty intense time at this year’s Melt! Festival. This was thanks partly to our extracurricular activities (which we’ll get to in a moment) but largely thanks to a fantastic lineup: surrounded by favorites like AlunaGeorge, Todd Terje, Chairlift, Zola Jesus and Squarepusher, we just felt overwhelmed by the amount of things to see and hear.

It helped that we were able to keep from melt!ing thanks to our time in the EB-hosted ice cream van from Giovanni’s Eisdiele, which provided free ice cream, waffles and of course free copies of Slices DVD Magazine and Electronic Beats Magazine.

Then we had brunch. On a freakin’ gondola. You don’t really get to do stuff like this a lot, unless you live on a gondola or possibly in Italy, in which case the experience is probably a bit less interesting. Probably one of the most unique experience we’ve ever had, and a surprisingly good cure for the hangovers most of us were packing. The prosecco and fresh fruits certainly didn’t hurt either.

We got a lot of smiles during the festival (maybe it’s because we’re so handsome and cool and buff….or maybe it was the free ice cream) but what really made our day was when rising British five-piece Citizens! professed their love for us … the feeling is mutual, kids!

Things got a bit heated during the Modeselektor-encouraged 3am pillow fight:

We haven’t been to a pajama-jammie-jam like that in … well, ever! War would be a lot more fun (and productive!) if it was fought with pillows. Plus you have the added benefit of having something to nap on afterwards, and believe us: we needed it.

So there you have it, or rather here you have it. Another fascinating and diverse year at one of our favorite festivals, and since tickets are already on sale for 2013 we expect even more excitement next year (barring any apocalyptic events).

Were you there too? You can find more Electronic Beats/Melt! related tweets and hipstagrams online, we’d love to hear your stories in our comments section — and we’re looking forward to kicking your ass (again) during next year’s pillow fight.

Published July 16, 2012.