Burning Man : The Lee Coombs Story 2008 (part two)

Thurs – 28th August

After a great sleep in the tour bus (I have to say this is seriously Pimping it @ Burning Man as most people have to staying a tent out in all conditions which are HARSH!, I feel very lucky to have this) I found my people and began exploring.

You have to bike everywhere on the Playa, it’s too far to walk everywhere and Burning Man is all about discovering the amazing art pieces that they plant randomly across the Playa. The theme of Burning Man changes each year and this year is ‘The American Dream’. Make of it what you will....

My good friend Peter Hudson is an amazing artist and this year he had Tantalus, which was a huge spinning Uncle Sam’s hat which acted like a giant Zoetrope - this is basically a 3D movie. It was about 25 feet tall and 40 feet wide and when it spins it seems like there is a life size man coming out of the ground trying to grab an apple out of a big hand above. Pretty crazy stuff and this is a major achievement to build and get it set up in the middle of the desert and it basically takes all year to do it.



Check out more of his work www.hudzo.com

Thursday night was my first and biggest set of gigs; I started of @ Root Society playing at 10pm. This is very early to dj at BM but it was an excellent way to start off, It is a huge open aired dome (one of the biggest in the world I think) with a massive sound system. The place was full (about 1000 people) and rocking by 10pm and I had a blast.

So then I was off to Opulent Temple which was all the way across to the other side. This was a journey that I had made about 5 times already and it was painful. The Playa had a soft layer of dust most of the way all over it about 2 inches thick. The Only way I can describe it is like the Moon…you have to choose your moment to cross after a while because it really gets to be hard work cycling in the thick sand like dust, and it will beat you up if you don’t pace yourself.



Now for the Big event, I always look forward to my Opulent Temple sets, and can truly say that they all rank highly in the greatest moments of my DJ career. This year they were pulling out all the stops with a new DJ booth and which had a bigger flame thrower on the top, bigger sound and giant dance platforms with lazers and massive projection screens. It was like nothing you had ever seen. AWESOME! I played after Marvin (Dylan Rhymes) who was rockin' it in the ‘speaker bending and bass wobbling’ way that he does, always large.

The Opulent Temple crowd is really a crowd that you can take places and really give them a musical experience. I had a bag load of bullets this year and I have to say it was probably one of my favourite gigs ever. It could not have gone better, with everybody lapping up the strange acidic basslines that I wanted to give them. I was in my element and am totally hooked on this. Especially having the controls of the giant flame thrower which you could let off at the biggest moments!



After my set I felt like I had achieved in a big way so it was party time, between all of us we waded through countless bottles of Russian Standard Vodka ....me, Marvin, Syd and Sam, all the OT crew, Smoove and his lovely girl friend, Leslie From Dj Mag, DJ Dan, Tim Healy and loads of other amazing people who I met and had a blast with but can’t remember what I did or got up to…..

J