Daft Punk – Back Once Again

2015 daft punk trash fence

Image: Timothy Stoner | Facebook

Just when you thought that the horse was dead and had been flogged beyond a bare semblance of a carcass…we get Daft Punk. At the trash fence. Burning Man 2015.

Earlier in the year, Burning Man’s “other” Nevada regional featured Daft Punk.

They did a trial run, even writing a guest post on this blog about it…and then decided they needed to do it One More Time.

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At the Burning Man Facebook Group, Burners tried to make sense of it all…

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Image: Vincent King Gutierrez | Facebook

Image: Vincent King Gutierrez | Facebook

https://twitter.com/TheFestivalGuy/status/639687522960961536

https://instagram.com/p/7SI0segfzq/

https://instagram.com/p/7Mxls9gf7L/

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Whether it was some dudes in helmets playing a CD, or a cover band, or the real Daft Punk – can we all just agree to move past this “joke” now? It was never funny.

 

Daft Punk at the Trash Fence

A guest post from our reader Damian:


 

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Over Memorial weekend at The Forgotten City, the Las Vegas official Burning Man regional over 800 participants witnessed what can only be described as the conclusion to the urban myth that is Daft Punk playing at the Trash Fence.

In the event guide released the week before an entry of “SURPRISE!” was listed at 9pmon Saturday night. Sound camps such as Rootist Lounge and Epyklandia had been contacted and told to go dark at that time and to avoid the urge to use social media. In production meetings, a small handful of leads were given the logistics of creating a minimum 27ft x 27ft stage on which a pyramid would be built and an additional 70kw of power to be supplied on top of the existing solar array powered Funktion-One sound system. The stage was to be wrapped in a trash fence. Additional security was hired to patrol the ridge line of the location to prevent the predicted horde of zombies that may appear. In fact regional Cameron Grant was so convinced that he personally contacted Burning Man HQ with his concerns.

With a five hour construction of the pyramid during the day the rumors and guessing of what the surprise was had begun, and by 9pm when Daft Punk’s Contact began playing from the pyramid and then two helmeted legends stood up, the crowd literally began to lose their shit. It was mayhem: half the crowd were numb and in total astonishment, the other half were pumped and in total disbelief repeating “no way, is it really them?” endlessly. The urban myth was in full force with 800 participants standing in front of a trash fence, blinded by an iconic LED pyramid wall and listening to Daft Punk played by a duo in suits and helmets.

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The aftermath on social media has been priceless with people demanding to know whether Daft Punk played, deniers doubting the budget of the event and booking price, the technical specification of the pyramid, the look of the EL wire in their suits and Burning Man HQ coming down on use of headliners at a regional event.

What can be said however is that everyone had a Daft Punk at the trash fence experience and everyone experienced some controversy including the event organizer who received this voicemail message: http://tinyurl.com/q52tbrq

 

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Burning Man Becomes Battleground for Tech Elites: the Real Story

Thanks to Alex Mak for penning this guest post.


 

Burning Man Becomes Battleground for Tech Elites; The Real Story

by Alex Mak

Monday Morning: 11am: Black Rock Desert, Nevada

A hot breeze blew over the city.  The massive wooden man creaked, and thousands of unused, baby blue porta potties stood lonesome in the midday sun.
“Where is everyone? asked Sergey.  The only people playing music are the djs we hired.”  With that Sergey tossed the last bit of lobster tail down to Skrillex and Diplo who fought over it hungrily, grunting and clawing on the deck bellow.
“Ya.” Said Larry.  “You don’t think all those articles about billionaires ruining Burning Man stopped people from coming do you?”
Just then Larry peered down at the fortune cookie that Alice Waters had packed in his lunchbox marked ‘Monday Lobster Lunch’.  The note inside said, “Nobody goes there anymore…it’s too crowded”.  Larry put down his chalice so that he could rip up the note with both hands.  We’ll see about that Alice…we’ll fucking see about that…”

Wednesday Evening: 5pm: 4 O’clock & K

“They’re all gone!” Cried Mark.  “My Sherpas have vanished!  They took my drugs, laser cannons, glow in the dark condoms… and fucked off in my helicopter!”
Grover took a long drink from his bottle of absinthe. “ It’s no time to panic marky…radical self-reliance man, it’s just you and me now.”
“NO! It’s all ruined now Grover!  I was supposed to take PCP and get carried around by a small army of topless hippie children! How am I going to SHOW my competitors that I am cooler than they are!?
“Chill out bro,” said Diddy, “We’ll figure something out, we will always have the music.”
“Shut-up Diddy, I’m calling in reinforcements…and by the way, your junk looks RI-DICulous.”
P Diddy looked down in disgust.  Since only 20% of his staff showed up to the festival he was forced to paint his own penis, and he had botched the job badly.

Friday Sunrise: 630AM: 10 O’clock and something

Elite Force was spinning furiously for a crowd of hedge fund managers who were all shirt-cocking in golden parachutes.  When Sergey and Larry showed up with the entire cast of the Transformers movie both Autobots and Decepticons.
“The Autobots carbon footprint is huge but look how cool we look Larry!” Said Sergey perched on the shoulder of Optimus Prime, 200ft above the dance floor.
“You’re right man,” said Larry, “Mark will never compete with us now, we’re bigger and better than EVER!”
Just then, rumbling could be heard off in the distance.  The air became very still, a large dust cloud was building over the playa, yet there was no wind.  It was Mark and Sheryl with a massive hoard of vigilantes wearing Aaa-mazing costumes.
When Sergey and Larry could see the whites of their eyes they noticed they were facing the entire cast from the 1939 production of The Wizard of Oz, as well as Aslan’s army from the Chronicles of Narnia.  Mark and Sheryl where out front riding giant animatronic sharks with laser beams shooting from their eyes.
IT WAS CHAOS!!!!!

Friday Morning: 800AM: 9 O’clock and Esplanade

Hundreds of corpses of men, woman, robots and lollipop guild members lay strewn across the playa, and the battle waged on.  No one was sure who had the upper hand until…death came from above.
A great shadow was cast over the battle field, all who fought stopped and looked up.  It was Elon with a large army of Nasa engineers and New York Times Reporters in Iron Man suits.
“On my signal, unleash hell.” Said Elon calmly.  “Yes Sir!” answered Jeff in his giant drone delivery copter.  “Victory will be swift!”

Friday Morning: 8am ish: Outer Playa

Way out by the trash fence Daft Punk stood on an awesome spaceship art car they hand-made from recycling old robot costumes.   They played their secret unreleased album to an empty dance floor.
“The one year we show up, and no one comes to see us.” Thomas said.  “Burning Man really isn’t what people say it is.”

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