Restaurant, bar, and nightlife blog Eater does a series of food interviews with musicians, called Sound Cheque (get it?). This week, it interviewed Passion Pit bassist Jeff Apruzzese, who has visited Miami twice this year -- the first time in March for Ultra Music Festival, the second time in June for a headlining gig at the Fillmore Miami Beach.
Asked about which music festival has the best food, his pick was Ultra.
Well, my favorite was the Ultra Festival in Miami; it's part of the Winter Music Conference. It's my least favorite festival to play but the best festival for food. I mean, it's a fun festival, but it's all DJs and electronic music and giant tents where you walk in and there are 30-person orgies with girls in bikinis and neon fur boots all chewing on pacifiers because they're rolling on Ecstacy at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. So at first, I was like, 'What are we doing here!?' But the food was totally amazing there -- all Cuban and Creole -- such good empanadas and arepas.As a reporter who has covered the music festival many times, I've never seen these "30-person orgies," but I definitely agree about the variety of food available at the electronic music celebration. At the same time, I'm a little sad he found his Ultra experience so bad that he calls it his least favorite. I enjoyed the Passion Pit performance despite the rolling candy ravers.
Anyway, if you need photographic proof of the deliciousness served -- even the Gastropod truck got in on the action by providing food to the artists as well as festivalgoers -- here is the food at Ultra slideshow we put up way back when.