Hot Creations transform Miami’s Ice Palace into Paradise
On Thursday evening, Jamie Jones and his band of merry DJs took over downtown Miami’s Ice Palace Studios for a marathon evening of the best representation of vintage-tinged deep house. The announcement of Hot Creations returning to Miami Music Week for their legendary Paradise parties further cemented the Balearic representation for the melding of dance music’s greatest minds this week.
Once the set times were solidified, I was ready to see what kind of party these dudes could pull off here in Miami. As I crossed back to downtown for the first time in four days, I thought to myself: how will Hot Creations get this party going in a neighborhood far less accessible than the clubs and venues of South Beach? Turns out, this was no problem at all. Upon arriving to Ice Palace Studios (which is actually a film studio by day), I approached a frenzied and disorganized line at the front gates. People were clamoring to enter, offering upwards of $100 in cash for access to the party replicating one of DC-10’s most famous evenings of the last few years.
I wasn’t expecting the venue to be so large — there was an indoor warehouse space, a DJ booth worked into an art installation, and a stage outside amongst the palm trees that could have been used as a festival side stage. The studio plot couldn’t have been a more perfect setting for a party called Paradise. The biggest bookings were playing outside and weaving through the crowd to gain an appropriate vantage point to enjoy the sets I had to maneuver around hammocks, mini cocktails bars interspersed throughout the grass, and a surprising number of people posted up on blankets and towels.
I only caught a bit of Benoit & Sergio, but to no one’s surprise they closed out their set with “Bridge So Far” — which has become somewhat of a Miami Music Week anthem this year. Lee Foss stepped onto stage around 2 a.m., powering through big tracks like KiNK’s remix of Rachel Row’s “Follow The Step,” Ibaquin Marin’s “Automato,” and NTFO’s “Pendos” off the recent Diynamic compilation. Thirty minutes in, a track featuring vocals that sounded mysteriously similar to Anabel Englund began. I looked up and realized the vocalist was up on stage with Lee, performing a new ID live. If we’re talking about pop elements in house music, her minor stardom is a sign of elements of celebrity already beginning to form for labels like Hot Creations. With Anabel still the focus of the excitable crowd’s attention and Jamie Jones chilling in VIP, Lee brought the party to a peak with Disclosure’s “Latch” and of course catchy tracks like “Electricity” and “Reverse Skydiving.”
The night was still young when he wrapped up at 3:30 a.m. — Jamie Jones would later play both a live and DJ set, Dyed Soundorom of Apollonia and Richy Ahmed also both took 90 minutes to themselves. By 8:30 a.m., Lee, Jamie, Dyed, and Richy all regrouped to crank out a menagerie of sounds for the dedicated early morning crowd.
Categories: Music