Mint Festival 2012: review

The guys at Mint Club have so far had a rather special 2012. The announcement that they were introducing their big sister, Mint Warehouse, to the city of Leeds caused huge excitement across party-heads from all around, and since a very successful opening this January, both the Club and the Warehouse have gone from strength to strength - curating the best line ups week in, week out.

The announcements for 2012 didn’t stop there, and just over half a year later the Mint family dropped quite the bombshell when they introduced us all to another member of the family, the daddy; Mint Festival.

There was something for everybody, with over 50 DJs including the likes of Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler, John Dahlback, Adam Beyer, DJ Marky, Hype and Greg Wilson (to name but a few!) spread across five big top arenas for the twelve and a half hour day in late September. Of course, we went along to celebrate the biggest event to hit Leeds’ ever growing roster of clubbing shenanigans in a long time.

After a rather shitty week of rain, the festival had somehow made a deal with the weather man to keep the skies bright and the grounds of the festival dry for pretty much the duration of the event, so there was thankfully little rain and little mud to get in the way of the knees-up.

On arrival, ticket queues seemed to be moving rather swiftly, whereas those of us on the guest list had to wait what seemed like an age, eagerly anticipating the eventual entry.

Once in we headed straight for the token stall to exchange currencies in prep for the bar. The transaction was complete in good time and it seemed the bar and token staff were on the ball and organised to avoid any more unnecessary queuing - something which is not always the case at these fests!

Now for some dancing. Our first stop was the Asylum & Friends tent, where Leeds’ very own Technicolor talents Sam Wallace and Jordan Plant were slamming out an energetic back to back set. Young Leeds talent is rife at the moment and these two certainly meant business as they turned an empty tent into a busy one with their impressive selection of rolling tech house layered with lively build ups.

The tent on many people’s lips however was (unsurprisingly) the System & Flux arena, boasting a stellar tech and deep house line up. Having missed both Soul Clap and Wolf & Lamb duos, Seth Troxler was the next man to take to the stage. After a profound season out on the White Isle this year, it was great to see Troxler back in Leeds complete with his arsenal of infectious tunes. After a deep disco start, he wasted no time in delving into trippier areas with John Tejada’s powerful new tune ‘Stabilizer’. From then on Troxler was responsible for a masterpiece of musical genius spreading across the dark tent, complete with euphoric, coloured spotlighting calmly flowing over the crowd with the occasional burst of intensifying strobes. Huge tunes like Ben Pearce’s vocal led ‘What I Might Do’ and Joris Voorn’s recent, uplifting edit of Mulder’s ‘Natural High’ were the flavour. The performance was briefly interrupted as the Mint crew brought Troxler’s birthday cake to the stage. He was certainly celebrating in style, as the whole crowd sang happy birthday before he started spinning again, to complete what had been a top quality set.

Photo: IGR Photo

We bounced over to the Darklight tent where Drumcode boss Adam Beyer was smashing out a sizeable portion of driving techno. Our heads were down and our fists were pumping… enough said! The tent wasn’t very busy however, and it looked like it was still going off in System & Flux - so back to the other side for Jamie Jones.

Following on from Troxler in similar, deep fashion, Jones kept the audience buzzing with a mixture of techy beats with percussive drum beats and an array of trip-inducing effects. He worked through favourites such as Green Velvet’s ever present ‘Flash’ and a bouncy re- edit of the Velvet alter-ego, Cajmere’s ‘Percolator' which had the tent bouncing off its pegs. As his set progressed, the crowd were plunged into more acidic realms with squidgy acid techno grooving its way across the dance floor. Jones kept the clubbers on their toes as he continued to dip between deeper, Hot Creations hits like the latest ‘Benediction’ from Hot Natured and faster, acidic techno. Then it was time for Reboot.

Part of the Cadenza crew, Reboot is known for his bouncy Latin tech house which was the perfect end to a night of consistently great tunes. There was still a good amount of people left in the tent to appreciate Reboot as he played through tech house belters like Technasia’s ‘Heart of Flesh’, also on the Cadenza imprint. However, we expected the possibility of a tricky return back to the city centre so we had to say goodbye to Reboot and head to the exit…

Now after such a great day, this was quite the anticlimax. For over an hour we stood sandwiched in at least a ten person wide queue for the buses back to Leeds. Everybody was shoving into each other trying to get to the front, and people were getting pretty squished along the way. Fair enough, I can imagine it to be challenging to organise buses for such a large amount of people, but more care should have been taken to ensure the situation went smoother. In the end, we gave up, went to flag down a taxi and paid £45 to travel 10 miles back to Leeds; not a great end to a great day! But a great day all the same.

After today’s event it certainly looks like Mint Festival will have a long and prosperous future! Wonder what the next addition to the Mint family will be…

Words: Jack Law

Photos: IGR Photo

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