This year, Live For Live Music has partnered with the nation’s premiere electronic music event, Ultra Music Festival, to provide complete coverage of both weekends of ear busting music and everything that happens in between. Throughout the week, we’ll be releasing exclusive interviews with some of your favorite Ultra Music Festival artists, and in depth wrap ups of everything going on down south.

The thing that sticks out about Ultra is the sheer size of it. Not even talking pure attendance numbers – Ultra just feels ‘bigger’ than most other festivals. It takes over essentially the entire city of Miami. Even if you’re not in Bayfront Park, the vibe of Ultra is infectious and spreads throughout the city. You feel it the second you step out of your hotel.

Physically, Ultra is enormous,  too. The Main Stage is absolutely massive and is a stunning sight to behold at night. The surrounding buildings are in on the act too, being lit up with matching animations pulsating to the beat. Flames shoot from the sky, fireworks are a consistent event once the sun goes down – it’s just a massive production that really pays off visually.

But clearly Ultra is really all about the music, that’s why people traveled thousands of miles, squeezed themselves into tiny hotel rooms, and saved up a small fortune to hear some of the worlds best musicians show of their skills in front of an adoring audience. This year’s huge names included the final stops for Swedish House Mafia on their farewell tour, the Ultra return of Deadmau5, #1 ranked DJ Armin Van Buuren, as well as crossover artists like Snoop Dogg and Matt and Kim. There was a little bit of everything – Ultra brings in essentially every relevant producer across all aspects of dance music from all over the world allowing acts that very rarely make US appearances like South Africa’s Goldfish showcase  their live show.

Snoop Dogg’s mid-day set at the Live Stage may have been one of the biggest surprises of the entire weekend. You’d think hardcore dance fans would shun a mainstream hip hop artist like Snoop, but it was one of the most crowded sets at the Live Stage over the entire weekend. A legend is a legend, and Snoop took the crowd through memory lane, busting out classics like ‘Gin and Juice’ and ‘Whats My Name’ before getting into some his new Major Lazer produced reggaeton tracks.

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There is so much going on at Ultra that you have to really plan out your time and make some tough decisions. While most of the younger crowd flocked to Swedish House Mafia’s headline set, for instance, the real party was at the Carl Cox and Friends Arena, where legendary producer Fatboy Slim threw down an awesome set that served almost as a re-union for those who attended the first Holy Ship, where Fatboy Slim spun what has become a now legendary set on a private island. Seriously, Fatboy Slim does not get the respect the man his due – if all you remember is ‘Praise You’ and the music video for ‘Rockefeller Skank’, listen to one of his recent sets.

So what other craziness happened throughout the weekend? Skrillex’s OWSLA stage was a hot ticket throughout the day on Saturday. French turntablists Birdy Nam Nam nearly stole the show with an absolutely insane live show in which all four DJs were seemingly constantly moving and working with a variety of turntables and equipment making it an incredible thing to watch and listen to. The night ended a little crazy when Alvin Risk was joined by Skrillex, Porter Robinson, and Zedd for an insane b2b2b2b set.

Zedd still found time to make it to the main stage later in the night, except this time he donned nothing but pink briefs while he ran laps around Deadmau5′s Main Stage closing set. What started off as a text message joke, quickly evolved into a Twitter challenge that Zedd could not back of – and he manned up created another Ultra memory.

Sunday’s Space Ibiza Stage had essentially every mainstream DJ in the game – David Guetta, Calvin Harris, Avicii, Tiesto, Kaskade – but the night really belonged to trance music. Closing down the main stage were two of the biggest names the genre has to offer right now – Above and Beyond and Armin Van Buuren. Throughout their set, which included fireworks, confetti, and a whole lot of dancing, Above and Beyond typed messages to the crowd, creating an atmosphere that was nearly unparalleled throughout the entire weekend. There’s really not much to be said about Armin’s set at Ultra – you know what you’re getting – the world’s #1 DJ closing down the ultimate dance music festival. What more could you possibly want? What more could you possibly want – besides doing it again next weeke…oh , shit.

Armin Van Buuren Set:

Porter Robinson Set:

Knife Party Set:

Nicky Romero Set:

Ferry Corsten Set:

Goldfish Set:

Laidback Luke Set:

Faithless Set:

Carl Cox Set:

Fatboy Slim Set:

Datsik Set:

Kaskade Set