CityLife

Creamfields excitement for Andy Mac

CREAMFIELDS: The world's biggest dance festival

MUSIC festivals are a generally a good thing, but they do have two main pitfalls. Firstly, a remarkable tendency to descend into mud-soaked chaos, as the British summer rarely affords us 48 hours of solid sunshine; and secondly, there is always the danger that Razorlight might be playing.

While there is no guarantee that the first of these will not befall this year’s Creamfields festival, we can at least rest easy knowing that Johnny Borrell will not be making an appearance.

The line-up for this year’s dance weekender, held at Daresbury in Cheshire, was announced last month by the ever-excitable Pete Tong, who, along with the likes of Bassment Jaxx and Dizzee Rascal, will be doing his bit for field-based arm-waving at the party this August Bank Holiday.

One other name on the bill is Andy Mac, the DJ partner of Cream MD James Barton and a regular fixture at the Liverpool superclub.

“I always get really excited about the prospect of playing there because I used to go all the time when I was a punter,” he says. “It’s great to play there, but I tend to stay for the whole two days and enjoy it like a fan as well.”

The festival expanded to its current two-day format last year, its tenth anniversary, and looks to be growing in stature all the time, even mixing it with the old guard of the festival circuit.

“It doesn’t just compete with other dance music festivals these days,” says Mac. “It’s up against the massive ones like Glastonbury and V.

Sense of ambition

“Every time a Creamfields festival gets announced, people know it’s going to be big. I think that’s what sets it apart; that sense of ambition.”

In aspiring to become huge, the festival has taken to adding names not directly associated with dance music to its line-up. It’s a brave ploy, especially since it could have ended up like the Great Daphne & Celeste Reading Festival Debacle of 2000.

Luckily, clubbers are a more placid breed than their piss-slinging rock counterparts, and the policy has paid off. This year sees indie lot Friendly Fires – a guitar band that truly understands the rhythm and composition of dance music – joining the DJ faithful.

“It works really well,” says Mac. “A lot of dance fans like other music too and with it being a two day thing now there’s a lot more room to indulge that. It’s always good to check out these up-and-coming bands.

“When you go to a festival, it’s quite exciting going through the whole [line-up]. To spend half an hour with one band and then shoot off to another. You end up taking in lots that you haven’t seen live or even heard before.”

Podcast

Away from Creamfields, Andy is eager to talk about the Cream podcast he presents, which has grown to have over 160,000 subscribers in 85 countries. He uses the show as a forum for sharing new mixes, information about Cream events and airing interviews with upcoming club guests.

“It’s great to have so many listeners. I get constant feedback. I can’t read most of it because it’s in so many different languages,” he laughs.

“I get a lot of messages from places like South America and Eastern Europe. All of those have their own Cream events, so you get loads of listeners asking about future mixes and what’s coming up in future podcasts.”

Having turned the download into such a success, Andy must know a thing or two about what goes into the perfect podcast.

“As long as you’ve got a decent mix in there it’ll appeal to people no matter where they are,” he says. “It doesn’t really matter where you’re based or what language you podcast in.”

Geographical barriers

Podcasting, then, has broken down geographical barriers and, like dance music, become a global language. This planet-straddling, technology-embracing approach is one of the things that have enabled the Cream brand to extend so successfully into countries such as Brazil and Romania.

But does Andy think this fascination with and knack for the employment of technology is something that is peculiar to dance music?

“If you look around now, there are so many DJs who focus on technology in what they do. Eddie Halliwell has got his own thing called ED-IT, which he’ll be using at Creamfields this year.

“His live show is gonna be all about that technology. If you look at Paul van Dyk’s booth, it’s full of keyboards, midi mixers, laptops. You could probably count the number of vinyl DJs on one hand these days.

“Most kids starting out now will just go straight for the laptop.”

So while the genre itself continues to push boundaries on the technological front, so too the bands and artists working within it strive to evolve musically.

Disco

Mac is something of a trendspotter, having witnessed more than 20 years in the evolution of dance culture, and his podcast commentaries betray and astute observer who is well-acquainted with The Pulse.

“I think the big thing for the rest of this year will be disco,” he says. “The two big genres right now are disco and dubstep. Dubstep’s become bigger and bigger but I think disco has made an even bigger comeback, with people like Greg Wilson making it popular again.

“It’s all about disco in the true sense of the word.”

Creamfields takes place on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 August. Call 0844 888 4401 or buy tickets by following the link on the right.