You and about 45,000 other people are probably still recovering from the madness and revelry over the weekend as the second edition of Ultra Singapore comes to a close. Through torrential rain and mud, partygoers flocked to Bayfront Avenue to see some 50 great international, regional and local acts perform their hearts out across three stages. However, not everyone had a great time; particularly Don Diablo and his team.
To everyone’s surprise, Ultra Singapore made a last-minute announcement yesterday (Jun 11) at 3:41pm that Australian EDM duo Knife Party (made up of two members from D&B band Pendulum, who were slated to close the Live Stage that evening) would be making an appearance during Don Diablo’s original set time of 4:15-5:45pm. Don Diablo eventually came out to perform a sub-par set during the last 30 minutes. While a lot of punters were excited that Knife Party made a surprise appearance, there wasn’t exactly an explanation on what was going on, until now.
Behind what seemed like a simple, quick stopgap fix, laid accusations by the Dutch EDM producer and the team, claiming that they were “massive disrespected” by the Ultra Singapore organizers and “not treated with a lot of love”. His flight from Beijing to Singapore was delayed and upon arrival, his tour manager claimed that he received a couple of text messages saying that they’re “not welcome” anymore and won’t be getting paid for the show because of his lateness. In the video, he goes on to explain that there have long-standing issues within the Ultra community over the years, and that “a lot of other DJs” are “afraid to speak out” because they want to perform at Ultra. He also announced that he “can no longer perform at any of the other Ultras in the near future”.
We’ve contacted the organizers for a response but they have “no comments” as of press time. While we can’t be too sure what really went down between both parties, it does seem like a whole big miscommunication (maybe they didn’t have Wi-Fi on the flight?). Either way, it looks like Don Diablo won’t be playing at any other Ultra-related events (he was previously slated to perform at Ultra Japan, which will be taking place at the Tokyo Odaiba Ultra Park on Sep 16-18), but fret not, he’ll continue playing at other music festivals around the world like Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, Tomorrowland in Belgium and Lollapalooza Paris. Maybe we’ll see him at ZoukOut in the near future too, perhaps.
