Taken from the Burning Man Festival 31st Aug ' 6th Sept 2004
After a heavy weekend at Creamfields I just about made it onto my flight - which was Tuesday morning at 8am. I did intend to have a quiet one over the weekend, but realistically that was never going to happen! Just about made my flight and had a long overdue sleep. I ended up sleeping for most of the first flight. When I woke up one of the flight attendants ask me would I like some food as they had saved me some, which was a nice touch. Had to change in Atlanta on an internal flight to Salt Lake City, which took about four hours, then another hour on a small Canada Air Jet to Reno. I arrived at Reno airport to find no one was there to meet me . . .
I had sent confirmation of my flight details via e-mail to Mick, the promoter that arranged for me to come over, but he'd had problems in picking up his e-mails and didn't get the details. We'd spoke over the phone about them, but I later found out that Mick had come to the airport 12 hours earlier, thinking I got in at 9am, not 9pm. I tried to call him to get in touch but there was no reception at all in the desert where the site was. I sent a couple of texts just in case they might get through. I waited round for a couple of hours in the airport then decided to book into a hotel and sort it out the next day as I was shattered with all the travelling. Once I had settled into the hotel I put my phone on silent and then shortly after went to sleep. Just before I did I checked my phone one more time to find a missed call from an unrecognised number. Called it back and it was Mick on a payphone from the airport. Explained to Mick where I was and he drove down to met me. By this time it was 1am in the morning, it wasn't worth the drive about 2hours into the desert in the middle of the night, so we both had a good night's sleep
The next day Mick had to pick the lads from Hybrid up, Chris and Mike. We had a few hours before we had to do this, so we made our way to Circus Circus in Reno for a buffet breakfast. Reno was sort of like a mini Las Vegas. A few of the same brand hotels and casinos were there, but not much else really. We stocked up with food & drink and then went to pick them up. We also picked up Hanna who was with them. Sandra Collins was meant to come over, but due to illness was not able to make it.
We had everyone and were now ready to start on the road for Black Rock Desert . .
It took us about 1 hour 30 minutes to get to the festival site. It was mainly a straight road, which seemed to go on forever. We stopped at a small town about 12 miles away from the site. This was the last stop before we hit Black Rock Desert and it had a sign outside which read 'the road to nowhere'
As we approached the site, the weather seemed to be taking a turn for the worse. It had been a clear day up until then. I had been warned that the weather out here can just change all of a sudden and the next minute you cannot see a thing! As we drove into the site, that's exactly what happened, we handed our tickets in at the gate and shortly after we had just drove through, we had to stop the car. We couldn't see anything in front of us at all. It was completely blurred, it's what they refer to out here as a 'white out'. It was quite hard to get my head round this term, as I had never experienced this type of weather before. We had to just remain static, in a queue of cars entering the site until it had blown over. Then we just started up again and made our way further into the site. As we were driving through makeshift lanes to guide the traffic into the site, there was painted signs all the way down. They were various phrases written on them. Some explaining the meaning of life, what the future will hold ' I can only describe it as a long physcadelic monologue.
The site of the festival was designed like a clock face in the middle of a massive desert area referred to as The Playa. So to navigate round you look for the hours, like 3pm was the far right point and 9pm was the far left point. The bottom part of the clock face was where the majority of stuff was; for example the campsites, stages and centre camp. The temporary streets they had made were named after the planets, Earth, Mercury and Venus etc. We drove round the outside perimeter heading towards 9pm and where we were staying. You are only allowed to drive at 10mph because any faster and you would bring up loads of dust off the Playa and that's causes problems for other people. It was a lot to take in. Very different to anything I have experienced in my life up to now.
We got to the campsite, which they had created. It was three RV's next to each other to provide some shelter, a tent, a barbecue and loads of cooler boxes scattered around. The campsite was right on the top edge of campsite on line with 9pm and 3pm. The view we had looking out was miles and miles of barren desert. There was nothing on the horizon. Madness! A very good spot though. I later found out that the position we were on the map was at 2 o'clock and Uranus. Not sure whether that had been planned or not? Funny nevertheless.
I met all the people at the campsite. There was a fair few people already there at this point. We dumped the luggage, had a few beers and then I tried to come to terms where I actually was.
We went for a wander round to try and get an idea of where everything was. The site was massive and it took ages to get anywhere. I was advised that the best way to get round was by bike. There were a few bikes at our campsite already, but not enough for everyone. I was told by the lads that everyone just borrows bikes from whether they are, not sure whether this is actually true or not in retrospect. If everyone does this that way everyone gets around the site ok. It seemed pretty reasonable at the time, and these guys had been coming for several years, so I had no reason to doubt them. While we were out we found out the main toilets were on Earth only which was always a handy thing to know.
Headed back for our camp, as we were knackered by this point. It's hard work in the desert. You have to carry a bottle of water with you at all times as well as a dust mask, glasses or goggles and a hat in the daytime. It really takes it out of you as your actually 4000 miles above sea level as well. It was early evening by this point and we got back to camp, had another beer and went on the decks. They had cleverly used one of the side panels on the RV and held it up with bungee cords and then put a table underneath, using camouflage netting and a parasol for cover. I played for some breaks for about two hours then we headed off for the Opulent Temple where Hybrid were playing a four hour set in place of Sandra Collins. This was Thursday night/Friday morning. It was really good and they received a good reception from the crowd. I was struggling though. It was about 3am and right in the middle of their set, when I had to go back to camp and passed out straight away. I was shattered. I may have still a bit jetlagged or just exhausted from the last week not sure. I ended up sleeping for seven hours, which turned out to be the longest sleep I had for the next week.
Woke up to loud music in the campsite. That's the one disadvantage from having decks at the campsite. I had read some info before I came to Burning Man that advised to bring some earplugs. I had taken this advice and was prepared for the next time I needed some peace and quiet. Chilled out for a while had some food off the barbecue and went for a walk down the esplanade to explore. The esplanade was just an open walkway through the middle of the site. We passed a tent with a sign that said Costco. As you could not use money at this festival, only trade things, I was curious as to what they were offering. It turned out that people were queuing up to trade soul mates for the day. You traded in your best friend for someone else's for 24hours!
We stopped at a nearby bar to see if we could get a beer. This would be our first experience of trading goods. We could get a couple of beers and a Vodka or two in exchange for some water we had on us and we promised to come back later on with some mixers for them. Sorted! We sat down for a while then headed off to see what we could encounter next. On the next corner we were met with a guy in a tank full of water, with mask and snorkel to breath. There was a guy on the corner with a megaphone drawing the crowd shouting; 'Come and see water boy!' 'Come and spread the moisture!' People were queuing up to touch 'water boy' and kneeling down to pray in front of him. Madness!
We went to centre camp after this to check the action there. Centre camp was the only place in Burning Man that you could use money to buy drinks. They had tea, coffee, lemonade and an electrolyte replacement drink. There's some chemical that you lose being in such a humid climate and this drink includes a supplement to keep your body in order. BM does a daily paper every day to keep people in touch with what's happening at the festival. This is one similarity with Glastonbury as well as having a post office. Glastonbury though has about 150k people in the site, whereas Burning Man has about 30k people but spread across a much larger area.
We picked up the paper and made our way back to camp.
We chilled out back at the campsite for a while. Played footy for a while with an amazing backdrop of miles and miles of desert behind us, just as the sun was setting.
The place is completely different in the daytime than it is at night. It was similar feeling to when the sunsets in Ibiza, the night arrives and you know what lies ahead.
We had heard stories about the Irish bar on the site and how they were giving away free Guinness, so we made our way up there. The Irish bar was sound. The main attraction was the free drinks, but they did have bands and DJ's playing there as well. I was introduced to Brian who was one of the people working on the Lush arena. I felt this was the best stage/arena in the festival, the work they had put into the production of the area was really good. It reminded me a little bit of the Glade arena at Glastonbury. Hybrid we're playing their scheduled gig here later on tonight.
Later on we went to see Hybrid's set at the Lush arena. The DJ box was the back of a large truck, with a stage in front, then loads of cover creating an arena to the right. The good thing about being right on the edge of the top half of the site was, if they were busy the capacity is unlimited. The crowd would just keep going back into the desert behind. Again the view was unbelievable from the DJ's point of view. They played 1 hour and 30 minutes this time. We headed back to camp afterwards to have a few more beers and to refuel so to speak.
Chris has spoken to this person who said she would sort out an art bus to come down to campsite and pick us up on its travels. We didn't know whether this was actually going to happen as everyone had had a few and were a bit uncertain. But after a while this bus stopped on the road right outside our campsite. We gathered everyone together and got on it. Didn't know where it was going or 'what the crack was?' That is a term I heard a lot whilst I was there. Most of the lads in ourcampsite were Irish but I don't know whether it was an Irish term or an American one
It turned out that this bus was taking us on a tour of the site complete with commentary as well. We went right around the top of the clock face, stopping at various locations to look at the artwork and creations that were scattered around the Playa. We saw the temple that was going to be burnt down on Sunday evening, the last day of the festival. It seemed to go on forever, but after about two hours we persuaded them to drop us back at the campsite. It was a good tour, but maybe it just wasn't the right time for it, 4am in the morning after another heavy night.
Woke up Fri and felt the last two days catching up on me. We chilled out for a while around the camp had a few beers and just relaxed and listened to some music. Decided to take it easy today as I didn't want to burn myself out as we were here for another two days after this. Friday evening we went to check out the Lush arena and check out the action there and then went back to the camp to get ready before the night ahead. D-Fuse was playing the Opulent Temple tonight from 1am-6am and we were going to see him. Had a few more drinks, listened to some music and then headed down there about 1am. I had learned from the last two nights living in the desert that it can get really cold when we get to about 3am in the morning and had been freezing the last couple of nights despite having several layers on and a heavy jacket. It was busy when we arrived at the Opulent Temple to see D-fuse and the crowd was already buzzing. He played Trance including playing several records he had written and produced himself. It wasmeant to finish at 6am, but he carried on, in the end till nearly 8am. There aren't many rules in an environment like this. You're in the middle of the desert and there's music the majority of the time all around you. If there's a crowd there they can carry on till whenever the crowd decides to leave. It gives you a sense of freedom.
The sun came up behind us before his set was finished. I had drunk a lot of whiskey that night and cannot remember what his sunrise tune was. What a sight it was regardless and what a backdrop to DJ to. Drunk some more whiskey for a while then went back to camp to pass out and get some rest.
Woke up early Saturday afternoon, having had around five hours sleep. You don't normally get more than that in Burning Man, there's always something going on all over the place. We had been here three days now and had to take stock of our survival needs. The three RV's were virtually out of water, the onboard toilets were all full, drinking water was running low and our RV's generator had lost all its power. These are serious issues when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. We had to be more economical with the drinking water so that it would last for another day, we got jump leads and started re-charging the RV and tried to sort out emptying the toilets. The man was burning tonight, so we had to solve them problems before we went out for that.
We had found out that the man burns between 9pm-10pm, but we wanted to get a good spot, as this was the first time here for a few people in our campsite, myself included. I was playing later on as well at 4:30am in the morning at the Opulent Temple, so I had to take it relatively easy till then. This was going to be hard as this wasn't for another 8 hours, but I didn't want to take any chances. It's so easy to get sidetracked in a place like this and forget about any plans that you make or people you were meant to meet.
We walked over the Playa about 8pm. We had to walk across the top half of the campsite to get there. There was nothing to be seen apart from many lights in background and small illuminations every of every shape and size. Because it's pitch black you can't see much, everything is either light up or illuminated. People walk round with glow sticks, lights anything on their clothes. One reason for this is for safety. There are a lot of Art cars and marshals that drive around the Playa. In the campsite arena's they are confined to the marked roads, but on the top half of the site they can drive anywhere across and people have been run over before for this reason.
When we got them it was mayhem. I could not really estimate how many people were there. I was told that there was about 30k people attending the festival. That doesn't seem a lot really about the same size as Creamfields in the UK, but picture them all standing together in one big circle. The structure with the man was in the middle. There was a small inner circle with marshals to stop anyone running into the structure and a ring of fire dancers between where we were and the marshals. The atmosphere was unbelievable. This was reason we were all here and the highlight of the week for many people.
All the Art cars were behind us on an outer perimeter with people partying away. There was loads of bizarre events taking place all around us. There was a group of people walking round with banners protesting that the man was going to be burnt shouting 'Don't burn the man' 'What has he done to you?' and 'Burn the woman instead!' You could just feel a huge buzz and anticipation around the place.
The fire dancers started their show at 9pm. There were hundreds of them all in a circle all doing the same choreographed moves. I had never seen this done on such a large scale before. They had people at various locations in front of the dancer's circle directing and orchestrating the movements. The show went out for about 45 minutes, then silence! The base of the structure was set alight to a huge roar from the crowd, fireworks were going off around the structure and the noise was deafening.
It took a while to get going. The base structure had to go up before it reached the man on top. As the flames reached one of his legs, another cheer was heard from the crowd - it had begun. The whole man caught on fire eventually and was ready to fall. When it fell, a large proportion of the crowd rushed the marshals and broke through, just running towards the Burning Man. Not sure what they were going to do when they got there, we couldn't really see. The heat was really intense were we where, I can't imagine what it would have been like closer in. All the marshals that were on the inner circle had fireproof clothes on to protect them.
We stayed there for a while and then decided to have a wander around to look at the various Art cars, meet some people and have a look around the far side of the Playa.
There was various music stage's scattered around the far side of the Playa. Ranging from a copy of a Greek Temple to just the back of someone's van, all in competition for the passing crowds. After we had had a good look round, we headed back to camp. I had a few hours before my gig, so we just got stuck into some more beers and I listened to some records to get an idea of what I was going to play. I had been to the Opulent Temple the last couple of nights so I knew what the set-up was like and had an idea of the type of crowd that would be there. The DJ booth was a cylinder that could only fit about two people in with just a window looking out into the crowd and all the equipment was covered in a thick layer of dust.
It was about an hour and a half before I was due to play when Mick came back to camp. He looked a bit worse for wear. We had been here and caned it for three days already by this point. I spoke to him and asked him if he fell asleep did he want me to wake him, He wanted to go and didn't want to miss it. Soon after he had passed out. I had arranged to meet everyone else at the Temple when I was playing so it was just Mick and myself at camp. It was time to go so I tried to wake Mick up, he wouldn't wake up. I left him for another five minutes, but then really had to go so I wouldn't be late. I just kept moving him and nagging him then eventually had to shout at him and get him up. I would have left him to sleep, but he did say to me he wanted waking up, and it was him that arranged for me to come over to play at Burning Man
I managed to get him on his feet but then had to carry him on one shoulder and my records on the other. Luckily it wasn't too far from camp; otherwise he wouldn't have had a chance. We got there and went to check out the backstage tent. It was like a big chill out tent, loads of cushions and loads of people sleeping as well. As soon as Mick got in there he sat down then fell straight asleep. I'd gone through all that effort to get him there, and then he just passed out. Damn. Ah well, the show must go on.
It was approaching 4.30am when I got onto the decks. I still couldn't believe the amount of dust that was covering everything inside the booth. I guess that's just the way it is out here. The view was amazing with miles of desert on the horizon behind the crowd. There were pillars going round each side of the crowd and then an archway where they met in the middle directly in front of the DJ booth. This marked the boundaries of the Opulent Temple arena, although the boundaries could be endless beyond these points.
The set went well and I got a good response from the crowd. Some of the records I played were Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence, Prytz/Angello ' Woz not Woz, Spektrum - Kinda New, Age of Love [Wrecked angle remix], Infusion V's Underworld [white] and a mix of Yeke Yeke / Sweet Dreams that went down really well at the end. I really enjoyed it and what a brilliant experience that was playing in the middle of the desert at Burning Man.
I finished my set just before sunrise. We stayed around the arena as there was another DJ playing after me. We chilled out and watched another incredible sun rising up from the desert. What a perfect end to a really good night.
I woke up the next day around 4pm in the afternoon. Didn't feel like doing much, so just got up, had some food off the barbecue and started to get pissed. This was Sunday, the last day of Burning Man. They were burning the sacred Temple tonight around 9pm and this was going to be the closing ceremony of the festival. As this was my last day here, I took a bike from camp and went to explore. I wanted to have a last look around whilst it was daylight and get some good pictures. 
I went along the esplanade and then down into centre camp to see what was happening there. I managed to pick up the daily BM newspapers from every day of the festival, which was a nice little souvenir. There was an erected wooden fence around the back of the centre camp tent and people had been leaving their own comments on the wall. One of them read 'Now what the f**k am I supposed to do 4 the next 51 weeks!' and another 'Can I be Cryogenically frozen until the next BM'
There were designated burning sites scattered around the site and a few people were burning all their rubbish already and having their own sort of mini ceremonies. The deal at Burning Man is that whatever you bring you must take away with you. The desert must be left in the same state that it was before the festival started; otherwise next year's event may not be granted a license.
After a while I headed back to camp to meet up with all the others and go and see the Temple Burn. It was a similar event to the Burning of the Man last night. A circle of people around the Temple with all the Art cars in an outer circle behind us. The Temple was a lot bigger then the Man last night, so it took a lot longer to burn down.
The person who designed and built the Temple has been working on it for 6 months. Then in about 30mins, their whole work is burnt to the ground. I was just trying to think what they would be feeling right now? We headed back to camp after that to see what the plan for the night was.
I had already packed to go home, so I was free to enjoy my last 5/6 hours at Burning Man. I was playing a breaks set at the camp along from ours later on about 2am, then I would be leaving around 4am. My flight was not till 9:45am, so that left us plenty of time to get there. You only had to be there an hour before your flight and the journey was and hour and a half to the airport. We had left an extra two hours for any delays. 
I went to have a last look round the Lush arena and the Opulent Temple before I had to leave. Stayed there for a couple of hours then headed back around 1pm. Made sure everything was packed and I would be ready to leave at 4am. Met up with some of the lads then went over to the other campsite to play on the decks. Played a breaks set for about 1 hour and 30mins, then started to get worried that about whether I was actually ready to leave at 4am. I left to go back to camp just to make sure.
It was 4am and I was ready to leave Burning Man. Felt quite emotional as I'd really had a wicked time here and met loads of really cool people. The atmosphere the whole week has been brilliant. I was looking forward to having a long bath though and not having to keep taking dust and sand out of every crevice.
Overall what an amazing experience that was and I cannot wait until next year!
I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone I met while I was over at Burning Man: Brian (Lush Arena), Dahi, Darrah, Darren, Gerry, Gunitan, Hana Banana, Jenny, Lydia, Mark (Opulent Temple), Mark Lynch, Neil 'The Doctor', Nicole, Rambling Rory, Roy O'connolan, Sonni, the Toxic Twins ' Eddie and Donns, the bus driver who gave us the tour and everyone else I met on my travels. I would especially like to thank Michael O'Carroll who sorted it out for me to come over and play.
