I woke up Saturday noon to a simple one line email from my editor at Spinner, “Can you interview Justice at 330 pm?”  Obviously, the answer was yes, I would say yes even if I was in a quadriplegic full body cast. There was no reason to miss out on this opportunity, especially since our initial interview request was oddly denied.

Buraka Som Sistema – Candonga from Jesse Ship on Vimeo. Don’t miss Blaya with the bootyquake on the 3 min mark!

Despite being held at Fort York on what passes for festival ground, Hard Fest TO was not a fest per se, but more of a long extended arm of the LA-based 2-day multi-staged event. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have a good time.  Most exciting for me was crossing off three bands from my must-see bucket list, Austra, Buraka Som Sistema and M-83.

Brewing storms held off until the very end of the night, and broke just prior to Justice’s set, delaying them by 20 minutes or so. Maybe they were scared that the rain would screw up their new hydraulic dj stage / organ contraption which no EDM act these days can be without!