The first night of Hard Haunted Mansion felt like a party at the end of the world and the second a celebration of survival and the return of humanity and joy. I know that neither zombies nor vampires need any more press at the moment so I'm reluctant to include them but I have to tell you what I saw.

Friday
The new building next to the outdoor stage gave the Shrine a feeling of destruction rather than construction and reminded me of stock market or meteor crash movies, where everything worth a damn is gutted for parts then abandoned. Unfortunately this crowd didn't have the fortitude for things such as chaos. This was a docile bunch, lobotomized by whatever drugs they were eating, they wandered around like hapless zombies staring at things. The walls were lined with kids slumped two or three deep, eyes open, consciousness closed waiting for someone to come by with lcd finger-tipped gloves and give their aura a hand job/light show. I didn't notice much of the music the first night because I couldn't stop watching them watch their lights and crawl all over each other. I hope they all made it home alright.

Saturday (Halloween)
Night two was completely different. The cloud of apathy blew away and the undead from the night before were replaced by people down for some fun. It seemed really strange that the crowd was so different, but in thinking about it I came to the conclusion that Major Lazer killed them all.  He's a know zombie killer, that's how he lost his arm. The amount of energy Skerrit Bwoy expended during the performance righted the Shrine's potential energy, including an intense stage reenactment of the Pon De Floor video which might have been more shocking had I not beared witness to so much STD swapping the night before. Buraka Som Sistema were the ones that broke the seal on the balls out dancing, Kid Sister turned up to join Steve Aoki, Modeselektor was joined by a team performing an alien autopsy, Basement Jaxx were a little stale and Justice never really disappoints.