RBC Royal Bank Ottawa Bluesfest – Day 11 by the numbers

Mainstage headliner: Skrillex! Headliner on the Full Flex Express tour

Party factor: 10. Every year, one night gets to 10 – and this year, it was Saturday the 14th

1st band: Gainsville FL’s Hundred Waters played to the first few hundred people through the gate; sounded like a fat groove Michel Legrand. Very accomplished harmonies on top of a really nice funky groove. Awesome!

Number of genre’s touched by TOKiMONSTA: At least 10. We have been following a few TOKiMONSTA tracks over the past few weeks, so we were excited to hear the San Francisco DJ’s futurebeats. Extremely cool dub beats.

2 DJ’s 1 name: Koan Sound – the first true dubstep act of 2012’s ‘electrofied’ Bluesfest – the Brighton duo started with bubbly dubstep, and finished with grimey dubstep (and hit most bases in between). Crowd starts to grow…

Number of times Diplo jumped into the crowd: 2. The crowd started to pour in (and drink) during Diplo’s masterful set. We’re huge fans of Diplo and the entire Mad Decent crew at PeteHatesMusic, so it was a huge treat to get to watch him whip the crowd up over a 100-or-so minute set featuring stuff from all over the globe. One of Diplo’s specialties (and something I really enjoyed watching) was how easily he changes speeds in his set… from house to Moomba to dubstep to hip-hop… this guy makes it look really easy. The most fun set of the day – thanks Diplo!

6 degrees of Beirut: Beirut has a french horn. The French colonized Lebanon. Many Lebanese people left Beirut in the 80’s to escape civil war, and came to Ottawa. So, it goes without saying, that Beirut did very well at Bluesfest. These guys are somewhere between Mumford & Sons and Ennio Morricone, and the Santa Fe NM band was an awesome dinner breather between beats. Featured a french horn, a tuba, 2 trumpets, a trombone, and a ukelele – very cool.

Number of light towers on stage for Pretty Lights: 17 – and they did a great job of providing ambiance to the Colorado producer’s soulfull originals. Somewhere between dub, jazz, hip-hop, and the wizard of oz…

10cc: The band I felt the most sorry for, as they had to play in the middle of a triangle between 2 of the loudest acts in music…

Loudness Factor Band 1: Mastodon. This band should make the soundtrack to Moby Dick… or some sort of ancient mariner epic. Pounding, shredding metal – flawlessly played. Drummer Brann Dailor gave a drumming clinic – amazing!

Loudness Factor 2: Skrillex. What act could have possibly finished off a full day of progressively wilder beats, and a progressively out-of-control crowd? I will answer that question with another question: Is there a better aggressive music act on the planet than Skrillex? Seriously… where does aggressive music go from here? Screaming, thumping beats from the most distinctive producer on the planet, with enough A/V tricks to put a drugged-out teenager in the hospital (which I’m sure happened today).

Is Skrillex the best DJ on the planet? No. But that isn’t important here. His compositions are absolutely the most agressive sound on the planet, and was the perfect act to close a hot, sunny party-factor-10 day.

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Beats officially arrived at Bluesfest today.