III POINTS 2024 ▼ October 18 + 19

[llz]

Due to circumstances unrelated to the festival, this review will not be as extensive as many of mine have been in the past. A lot went wrong outside of the fest grounds on this trip including my main camera being stolen, but we tried to make the most of it. We were only able to attend Saturday, with hopes of being there at least before sunset. But, with all the bumps and twists and turns, we barely made it inside halfway through Soulwax set.

We bolted towards Mind Melt, weaving our way through shockingly easy. A welcome surprise, but at same time not, as this festival is very expansive. Double-digit stages and activities abounded amongst the grounds. It's pretty genius to spread out the masses like this. These days, it seems like the ACLs and Lollas are so focused on topping themselves every year with "the largest crowd ever" at a particular stage. Which is obnoxious and potentially dangerous and really just uncomfortable as fuck for even the most die-hard of fans, citing the Reddit reviews following those festivals. 

I feel the need to mention, I have been watching iiiPoints with interest from afar since the short-lived Day For Night years. Mainly their seeming similarities were a draw, while I understand this predates that. Further, I must admit the main attraction that finally pulled us in was Massive Attack headlining. They have been near the top of our must-see elusive acts, especially my wife, and that booking was enough to convince her in taking the leap for such a short trip, squeezed into our busiest month of the year. So her disappointment when they dropped out within a week of showtime is not understated. I felt the only thing that could have been equivalent or topped would have been The Chemical Brothers for us. I was impressed like everybody else how quickly the organizers were able to pull in Soulwax as a replacement. For my wife though, she was not very familiar with them. But once I blasted through their discography, she became a fan (she fully bought in to their initial 90's rock sound as that is what she grew up on.) 


And in a specific way, I would argue Soulwax is more of a rare, exclusive catch than Massive Attack, especially for us.
M.A. had not played the U.S. in 5 years, and they had not played where we live since 2010.
But that's more than you can say for Soulwax, who has -never- played within a thousand miles of our home.


So with all that said, I was beyond bummed that we missed the first 30 minutes, but eternally thankful we got to see the last half.
The stage design with the three drum sets on scaffolding really Melted my heart, not just Mind.
Proud to say I can cross them off my list and they sufficiently filled in the Massive void of whom they replaced, and effectively erased. 


Since we missed most of the day, I wanted to immediately wander around and get the lay of the lands. Finally experience what iiiPoints was all about. The indoor skating rink and Full Moon Motel were unique touches that I couldn't help but admire. We were so pleasantly psyched to wander upon one of ThomasDambo's wooden trolls - apparently named Joen and the Beetle, an old van he is leaning on. Both now graffiti worn to hades since being built in 2019, previously in such clean, pristine condition. We have seen two other in the world, and this really gave us a laugh, like this troll somehow happened to land in the middle of EDM Soddom and Gomorrah

Around the corner, we saw bits of Jubilee within the sweet s3qu3nc3 stage, which reminded us as a smaller version of The Cube from forMAT.
Saw the transition of ChaseWest > BLOND:ISH at Isotropic, the wife's fav.stage
We also happened upon the left field M.C.R. stage, spying on metal act Smelter, who reminded us of our old high school buddies' bands, and the avant garde theater school rejects in Donzii, who were my wife's favorite discovery of the night.

This stage reminded us of the D4N Yellow stage that was hidden out of the way behind the docks of the post office. All that was missing? - anklepants. Bookit, iiiPoints!

Directed back to Mind Melt for 2nd half of Jamie xx - right when Loud Places began, perfect time for my wife who loves that track. We comfortably parked our broken, bent backs against the metal rail of the sound booth, where I could peek at Justice's crew prepping for their time upcoming. We saw Jamie at forMAT last year where he shattered our skulls in the artsy fartsy part of Arkansas. What we saw here was a much more grooving set also tailor-made for Miami sound/ I loved the Santa Esmeralda mix towards the end. This dude is a premium creator. 



Soon as he ended, we zigzagged straight away to dead center stage, about 10 rows back. Watching the Justice lightgrid being setup accentuated to how intense that show is. Like an ever-evolving drone hivemind robot hypnotizing you. Witness its every move but never fully understanding how exactly it can be done so smoothly. These two dudes are the closest I'll ever get to Daft Punk. Saw them ACL 2018 in betwixt Metallica, which I will never regret, and had been pining after them ever since. So blessed I got to see this set, it definitely represented what the stage name was. 



Not even the six teenage ladies shoving their way up loudly next to us could ruin the high these Frenchmen had us on... turned out they were PAWSA campers?! - a couple of them were getting into the set, but two of them in the back - the 16 year old blondes version of Statler and Waldorf - immediately were yelling out so everyone could hear them "I don't even know who or what  this is!.... Like... this isn't It okay". We were too into it to care for a response. And by the end, I could tell they shut the fuck up on their own and were even grooving to the tame Impala mix.


After Justice took us to CROSS church, the teenage tsunami came roaring in, and it was A beast trying to get back out. This definitely made us feel the Olds, and we had a mutual thought in counter to the blonde Statler - like who even is PAWSA? Is he that good? We never felt like finding out.


Saw the last gasp of Bad Gyal, a couple tracks of Carlita (another whom I discovered at forMAT) and went through some of the digital art galleries which were nostalgic D4N again. We were also noticing how this was apparently turning into peak people time, the attendance appeared more dense, more crowded. We had been up since 5AM, we decided it was time to wind down. On the way out, caught some Sammy Virji @ RC95 stage - and I was drawn to the O.D.D. shack in the back corner of the crowd. Did not realize until afterwards this was the Objects Don't Dance setup, and the act I witnessed turned out to be Sister System/Jonny From Space. Very ODD indeed, but I loved the random discovery, such a cool idea. Shout out Truevine!?(another sadly missed witnessing)


From this tiny taste, I am happy to finally be a iiiPoints attendee. Hopes to return some day. 

(okay I guess this was still long)