It all started with a relatively nice sunny Friday morning...

First up it was off to see Satoshi Tomiie and Hector Romero at the Beatport mashup at the National Hotel with its 110 foot long pool. Overrun with an array of M3 action and Beatport holding fort out the back, the leader in digital download stores took home the award for Biggest Poolside Banner with their impressive alien backdrop. Richie Hawtin, sporting a very Hollywood movie star-esque slicked back do and lounging around in anticipation of his BED night, again showed his dedication to all things tonsorial. N.B. We choose Slick Richie over Combover Richie. The Beatport party certainly seemed to have pulled in the right crowd with more DJs than punters milling around the pool; as you’d expect for a company which is leading the way in the digital download department.

Word on Washington Avenue had it that the JZ and Fancuilli do was well over capacity at the 'not supposed to be a club but is during the conference' (aka Cafeteria). A great place to have lunch but a relatively undersized club, when we arrived, in excess of a thousand punters were outside all jostling to get in. Around the same time, BED (thanks to Made Event and a certain Minimize to Maximize party) was also filling up; Troy Pierce getting it on. Taking the first slot right through until 1am Troy kept the music and the crowd at an arms reach for the early part of his set, resisting the urge to over play the space. At about 11pm he began working it a little harder, setting up the place perfectly for the arrival of Marc Houle, by which time BED was at its capacity.

Leaving a painfully large number of ticket holders stranded outside – not an ideal scenario but as expected due to the 'minimal' hype over the past 12 months - early on, Richie Hawtin held himself back, playing some properly long and light minimal numbers as if to separate the men from the minimal boys (aka those people who like to claim Hawtin is cool simply because it makes them look cool). Hawtin's set was an all out Minus affair featuring a few of the incredibly huge tracks due to be released on the forthcoming min2MAX compilation. At times, Hawtin destroyed the place with a great vibrant crowd and the likes of Steve Bug and Adam Beyer in attendance. One of the best parties of the WMC so far, he really set the standard and will surely be a hard act to beat.

With the AMonly party simultaneously raging on at Nocturnal in Downtown Miami and an afterhours rumour with Richie Hawtin confirmed, it was then off to Nocturnal, which quickly became one of the hardest venues to get into. As the intimate Nocturnal terrace slowly lit up with the fast approaching sunrise, perhaps the WMC's tallest DJ, Adam Beyer - something of a giant standing at almost six and a half feet - took to the decks, entertaining many of his techno peers and the crew from BED.

Once the sunrise hit, the warm rays were well received by the crowd and suddenly, it was all on. Although the Hawtin vs Beyer set was a huge highlight, it was also impossible to overlook the sets and/or attendance of the likes of Loco Dice, Luciano, Marc Houle, Mathew Jonson, Mr. C and James Holden. Once again, the crowd was a collage of artists, PR folk, booking agents, cheeky press and the odd music junkie lucky enough to get in. Perhaps, as close as Miami will ever get to DC-10 in Ibiza.

It was pure madness. The music was superb and the sun and blue sky peeping through the clouds overhead were a welcome sight on Nocturnal’s intimate 200-capacity terrace.

But then, it suddenly all came to a head in minimal TV soap style, with an incident between Richie Hawtin and the big side-of-a-house sized security team (a mandatory requirement of any Miami club). At first it looked like just a few stern words but the chain of events that soon followed had mouths dropping.

What exactly caused the riff we will probably never really know, but Richie wasn’t prepared to be kicked out. Asserting their authority like only they know how, within seconds one guy had Richie in a headlock, while another two (pulling at various parts of his body) made an effort to get him out the door. Various friends and DJs in the vicinity tried to help stop the nonsense but as you can imagine, convincing a dozen gorilla-like security guards to do something distinctly different from their mindset was never going to happen easily. And it wasn't until Beyer pulled the music that things abruptly came to a halt.

Nocturnal

A few minutes later, clubland-style diplomacy from various parties did some damage control and a battered, bruised, but in no way beaten Hawtin returned to massive applause. He stepped up behind the decks and put on a tune that gave the bouncers a proper "Fuck you" (a variation of Hearthrob - Baby Cake - that kicks in around the 15 minute mark on the RA Podcast with Troy Pierce). With the bouncers on edge and the madness looking like continuing, as midday approached we decided it was time to get out of there and spend the rest of the day in less heated circumstances.

Still, tonight the bar was firmly raised by the techno mafia at the WMC 2006. Here's hoping we'll be lucky enough to experience something equally comparable in the next 24 hours.

Word to the wise: Don't underestimate the guy with the slick hairdo.

WMC Photos - March 24 – Friday
Minimize to Maximize with Richie Hawtin at BED
(Saturday morning) AM Only Afterparty feat Hawtin vs Beyer
James Zabiela & Fanciulli at Cafeteria
Beatport Pool Party at National Hotel
AM Only Party at Nocturnal Club