The BPM Festival's Opening Weekend Was an Overwhelming Smorgasbord of Awesome

It begins. There's no more appropriate way to shake off the end of 2014 than trekking down to the blissful eden of Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, for ten days of (mostly) house and techno. Along with tens of thousands of international revelers meeting at the intersection of sun, sand, there's the kind of unique synesthesia that results when a dizzying amount of musical talent meets an endless supply of tacos so good they're ambrosial.

Most arrive by plane, then bus. The journey from the Cancun airport is a straight line down a highway flanked by jungle on one side and peppered with massive, monolithic entryways for beach resorts on the other. Ten years ago, Playa Del Carmen wasn't even a mentionable stop on the Mayan Riviera. Now, it's the fastest growing city in Mexico and the BPM Festival, now in its eighth year, has been a huge part of that.

When the sun came up the next day, the majority of partygoers kicked off BPM with a wait of epic proportions. Word on the street was that ticket sales had spiked in the preceding three days, so the line for wristbands snaked down further than the eye could see. Some people said waited as long as nine hours, but most remained in good spirits and took the opportunity to mingle with the folks around them in anticipation of the madness set to ensue.

The rush of the first day was Carl Cox and Friends at Mamita's Beach Club. Eats Everything worked the crowd into a flurry of floppy-armed glory before the big man himself rang in the night-time with a house-centric set that had the crowd kicking up sand for hours. The vibe at the club that day was like Ibiza-on-rumspringa and it had all the buzzy energy of a first-day showcase in a tropical paradise. Clad in a shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Old School," Cox wasted no time for niceties as the party delved straight into overdrive.

Here's some things I learned on day one. Firstly, never wear pants. Even if you're feeling the chill, it's gonna be humid and your nether regions will regret it by the time you hit the dancefloor. Second, get your cash out in pesos. Paying in dollars will always cost you when dealing with "entrepreneurial" vendors. Lastly, take naps.

Rinsed out from Carl Cox, I ended up taking a disco nap and waking up again at 2 AM. Usually, this would mean I had gone bust, another night thwarted by my heavy eyelids. Not the case at BPM, though, as I hauled myself out of bed and trundled myself to Blue Parrot for Dusky, Heidi, Kim Ann Foxman and an impeccable set by Maya Jane Coles. It's no surprise by this point, but the Londoner is still worth every ounce of hype.

I spent the next day bopping back and forth between Lee Burridge's All Day I Dream party at Mamita's and Dusky's showcase at Canibal Royal, a more intimate beach venue tucked at the very end of Playa's main drag. There, I caught an unannounced Jimmy Edgar set, followed by Danny Daze and a personal favorite: Justin Martin. It was during his set, characterized by typically creative and playful ruminations on house, that I finally nestled into the BPM headspace, bouncing about with a stupid grin on my face and a fruity cocktail in hand.

Even with a packed touring schedule, Martin manages to keep things fresh. "I play a lot. I just try to keep it as interesting as possible," he explained, smiling as always. "I'm very fortunate that for the past week and a half, I've had my friends with me at every single show. Basically, if I'm boring my friends, and I'm boring myself, then I'm failing!"

"I love it here. I actually saw a bunch of people from Holy Ship!, which is pretty badass," he added. "That's the hardest party ever to come down from, but BPM is the perfect place to do it. This is kind of our vacation time. It's the one time of year I can actually chill out and actually sleep more than four hours a night."

TOKiMONSTA's Young Art showcase that evening was one of the most sonically varied of the whole calendar. Nosaj Thing and Two Fresh in particular dropped some hip-hop-influenced tunage that probably had some of the house-heads on the beach turning their heads in confusion. Breaks? Hip-hop? At BPM?! It was rad.

Culprit celebrated a breakout year with a daytime showcase at Fusion Beach Club; with their heavy hitters Adriatique, Benoit & Sergio, and Jozif in tow, it was one of the most stacked lineups of the whole weekend. It was during Manik's set that I got a phone call from my mother. "I'm at a party, Mom!" I yelled into the phone over Manik's classy selection of house beats. "Who goes to a party in the day?!" she asked, legitimately concerned. The less my mother knows about BPM, the better.

As one of the biggest names on the lineup, Carl Cox always draws a wall-to-wall crowd. His Intec showcase at the Blue Parrot was pretty stuffed to begin with, but as a thickly-dropped deluge began to fall upon the open aired area, the soggy masses crammed inside and I squeezed out of the rush and through the chaotic main intersection of the Playa party drag to the roomier climes of La Santańera.

One of the main challenges of BPM is managing the overwhelming amount of talent at your fingertips. Luckily, La Santańera did the hard work for me and placed the Black Butter showcase on their terrace, while Scuba, Ben UFO, and Alan Fitzpatrick pushed a totally different vibe inside. A transcendent moment was the juxtaposition of Drumcode man Alan Fitzpatrick's hard hitting tech beats at 5 AM inside, with Redlight on the terrace dropping straight up UK garage vibes as the sun began to come up. Every part of my body said "go home and lie down,"but I just couldn't do it. Eventually I wrenched myself outta there and, smiling as I walked through the rain, trudged home at 6AM.

It's hard to believe that this is only the beginning.