With the main purpose of going to the festival being The Chemical Brothers set, we preceeded the event with a leisurely afternoon of drinking and chatting on Southgate's front porch.
As the sun began to lower in the sky, we then made our way to Doomben Racecourse where "The Future Music Festival" was being held.
I had no expectations from this festival.  It was to be a first time experience for me, having never attended an all electronica and DJ event before.

Upon arrival, Southgate, Mattjew and I ventured over to the "Ten Pound" stage. Here we caught the end of the set from Norwegian band "Datarock".  Dressed in red, two guitarists, a keyboardist, and a drummer, these guys were jamming out a few good dancey tracks, and the folks in the small mosh pit were happily jumping to it.  Described as 'electro rock' or 'dance rock', the band appeared to be enjoying the first of the five Australian Future Music Festivals.

After a few songs, Southgate turned to me.
"Man, I'm so drunk," he declared, having had a few pints back home.
"Really?" I replied, "Coz I'm thirsty."
"Time for a drink!" exclaimed Mattjew, and we all nodded our heads in agreement and headed for the nearest bar.

The drinks at this event were an absolute rip off in this blogger's humble opinion.  We each had to purchase 'drink cards' ($10 or $20 each), and upon a drink purchase, the total amount was stamped out of the card.  This, of course, meant that if you had any money left over on the drink card, you pretty much lost it.  Bourbon cans were $8.50 which meant I could buy two on my $20 drink card with a useless $3 left over.  Yes, the festival organisers really knew how to make their extra money at this gig.

The nearest bar was in the "Future Funk" room.  A mess of moshers were dancing as a DJ (Evil Nine?) was pushing out tunes from a turn table.  The room was jumping and the music wasn't terrible so the three of us got drinks and jumped up and down for a bit.  Southgate and I were, instead of miming air guitars, were miming scratching records, leaving me in stitches of laughter. 
I couldn't help but giggle at the punters in their mixture of outrageous outfits, all jumping around, their flared 'phat pants' swishing, their feather-laiden hats bobbing up and down.  The audience response to the DJ was simply bizarre: in a kind of heavy metal "show us your horns" kind of way, whenever the DJ held up his hands in the air, the moshers would follow suit.

After catching up with friends, having a few more drinks, and gazing at the people screaming on the "Dominator" ride (a horizontally seated ride which lifted the people up in the air in a circular motion and generally swung them around from side to side in an attempt to make them throw up), we finally made our way over to "Future Music" main tent.
Here, we caught the end of DJ Roger Sanchez's set as he spun records (or CDs as the case may have well been).  What he played wasn't too bad and I was impressed to hear Underworld's "Born Slippy" as his final track.

DJ Sven Vath (rhymes with 'bath') was next on stage, once again spinning a few tracks.  His choice of music didn't impress me too much so I decided to relieve the bordom - or so to speak - by finding the port-a-loos.
Despite the large number of toilets located near the main stage, they each had a queue of people 7 or 8 deep.
As I neared the front of the line, I was a little surprised when the door opened and two guys exited, one wiping his mouth, which caused me to cringe.  Whether it was sex or drugs they were doing in there, I don't care to guess.  I was more surprised that you could actually fit two people in there to begin with!
By the time I got to the front of the queue, the guy who exited told me that there was no toilet paper left.  I rolled my eyes but had waited so long, it was a small inconvenience to tolerate.
Horrifically, there may not have been any toilet paper in there, but there was just about everything else, including excrement upon the toilet seat!
Now, I've travelled the world a bit and had to visit some pretty repulsive toilets, but these were some of the worst.  I was just glad that the sun had gone down and the heat wasn't slowly cooking the port-a-loo contents.

I rejoined my friends near the sound tent at the main stage and at 8pm DJ James Holroyd appeared at the main mixing desk.  He took position at the left of the stage on a smaller turn table desk as the large centre one was rolled out and a humungous mixing desk and set of synths were wheeled on to centre stage, ready for "The Chemical Brothers."

At 8:20pm, Southgate, Mattjew and I found ourselves at the barrier at the back of "The D".
Subtly, The Chemical Brother's song "No Path To Follow" - the first track from their latest album "We Are The Night" - could be heard. 
This was it!  We were excited!
Opening with "Galvanize" with the "Dont hold back" line of encouragement, the crowd went wild!  People jumped, hands were waving in the air, and the glow from mobile phones, cameras and raver glow sticks littered the crowd.
The Chemical Brothers set for the 90 minutes certainly did not disappoint.  All the songs that I had hoped they would play *were* played to an interesting light display including green lazers which beamed out over the crowd during "Hey Boy Hey Girl".  The visual screen behind him was constantly projecting interesting digital images, a big plus since the two guys as an actual act aren't really anything to see (they were, after all, simply pressing buttons on a turn table).

Their set, which was an 80 minute mixture of remixed songs all blending into each other, with never a break in the music, included remixes of past singles including "Believe", "Get Yourself High", "Out Of Control", "Song To The Siren" and "Star Guitar".
Their 2007 album "We Are The Night" was not to be left out either as they played "All Rights Reversed", "Saturate" and the catchy "Do It Again."
At 9:50pm, the main set ended in a pumped up remix of "We Are The Night" which left the crowd jumping and screaming for more.
After a few minutes of darkness as the duo left the stage, they then reappeared for one encore song: an extended remix of "Block Rockin' Beats" which once again had everyone screaming with excitement.

I was not disappointed with The Chemical Brothers set of music or the visual display.
The crowd, however, were not as pumped as I had hoped they would be.  Many were too drunk to stand having spent the entire afternoon there spending hundreds of dollars on over priced alcohol.
Others appeared drugged up to the eyeballs or as high as kites.

I was in the mood to dance my feet off and unfortunately, due to the subdued crowd in my section and the lack of personal space, dancing was pretty much impossible.

Overall though, the event was enjoyable and full of laughs.  Even the ride back - five of us squished into the Mil-Mobile - and our bizarre adventure through Toombul Macca's was a laugh from start to finish.

The Future Music Festival plays the rest of Australia on these dates:
Perth - 2 March
Sydney - 8 March
Melbourne - 9 March (sold out!)
Adelaide - 10 March

So get your fluffy gators and phat pants on, man, and get dancin'!