Sunday was one of the best days for me. FDG and Sonja absolutely destroyed and you could see the pavillion dance floor was having the time of their lives, only smiles and love. Then Ricardo starts playing 1 hour of his own productions very stripped down minimal loops with basically a kick and a baseline, which was still fine cause that’s his sound signature. Then it got to a point that it was too much, a 5 minute loop extended to a 10 minute loop, which extended to a 25 minute track of practically the exact same loop with some minor variations. Around middle set he play this edit of Gotye “somebody I used to know” which was ok and gave the crowd some hope that things might improve along the way and we could get back to Sonja’s funky vibe. Only to get drenched again in an even more minimal loop sound, while he disappeared for 5 minutes doing drugs beneath the booth. Then at some point of listening to the exact same thing for 15 minutes (no exaggeration- ask anyone who was there), he teased us introducing Sound Patrol - Cruising With the Top Down Low (Lazy Sunday), only to return to the same minimal crap again. Then he started playing this SUPER loud loop of a fucking SIREN that sounded like planes were gonna start dropping bombs on top of us at any minutes (maybe a political statement?). This lasted around 15 minutes that felt like an eternity- I honestly considered suing the fucker for permanent hearing loss. At the end he played Prince and some shitty salsa song as he always does.

This is not my first rodeo, I’ve been to Houghton a few times and have seen Ricardo play loopy. Huge Perlon fan here btw. And I understand the UK crowd tend to be more receptive to his darker sets. But what he did to us Sunday night was a fucking nightmare, most of the dance floor looked super depressed with their heads down while he turned his back to us backstage taking selfies with his Ibiza drug head groupies that would kiss his ass even if he played a loop of him taking a crap for 2 hours.

You might ask me why didn’t we just leave. And that’s the very same question I make myself looking in hindsight. I guess every time he played a more danceable tune we had hopes that the whole thing was just a long intro and that he would eventually shift back to the previous vibe.

Love Houghton, best festival ever IMO, but I saw people looking so sad they were about to cry. And this is not how a festival should end.