Forget your personal trainer, chartered accountant, and life coach.
We at New Times are the highest authority on how to spend New Year's Eve in Miami. And we say, "This is no time for moderation!" Go live out the dying days of 2011 in a totally out-of-control cyclone of rabid, unfettered excess: Steal pills from wasted celebs, eat fistfuls of foie gras, gobble edible 24-karat gold by the gram, and wash it all down with endless hits of Dom Pérignon off a Swarovski crystal bubbly bong.
Or, uh, if your credit cards are already maxed out, just buy a general-admission ticket to one of Miami's ten best New Year's parties, sip the free champagne till midnight, and kiss a stranger when the ball drops on 2012.
Kaskade. Friday, December 30, 11 p.m., LIV, 4441 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-674-4680; livnightclub.com. Tickets are sold out. Ages 21 and up. Why not start your end-of-year party spree with a hopelessly impossible mission like trying to weasel your way into superstar DJ-producer Kaskade's sold-out electro-house fest? Sure, you might need to bribe the bouncer, score tix from a sketchy SoBe scalper with an office inside a dumpster, or sell yourself to a registered Fontainebleau guest for the night. But that's just the price of an awesome NYE in Miami.
Nero. Friday, December 30, 9 p.m., Fillmore Miami Beach, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach; 305-673-7300; fillmoremb.com. Tickets cost $23 plus fees via livenation.com. Ages 16 and up. The original Nero was a Roman emperor who really liked to party. He allegedly set fire to Rome to sweeten a real estate deal, killed his mom, and even used Christians as lawn torches to illuminate a private garden. Of course, this evil megalomaniac won't be DJing at the Fillmore this Friday. (He killed himself 1,943 years ago.) It's just the brutal British dubstep duo that stole Nero's name.
Lauryn Hill. With David Berrie, Drek Martinez, and DJ DL. Saturday, December 31, 9 p.m., Shelborne Beach Resort, 1801 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-531-1271; shelborne.com. Tickets cost $200 to $5,000 plus fees via shelborne.snaptickets.com. Ages 21 and up. Yes, Ms. Lauryn Hill is a superdiva with a habit of showing up, say, two to five hours late for every party. Last year, her mani-pedi ran a little long, so she kept a Rock the Bells audience on hold for approximately 183 minutes. So, will Ms. Hill be sharing a champagne toast at midnight with the Shelborne's guests? The hotel's reps say yes. But our clubland bookie puts the odds at 7-1. Place your bets, Fugees.
Jim Jones. Saturday, December 31, 9 p.m., SoBe Live, 1203 Washington Ave., Miami Beach; 305-725-3353; sobelivesouthbeach.com. Tickets cost $40 to $5,000 plus fees via wantickets.com. Ages 21 and up. East Coast rapper Jim Jones would like to extend a personal invitation from his homies in the Dipset crew to you. "What's poppin', M.I.Yayo?" Jones hollas. "SoBe Live! Let the ball drop! My New Year's resolution is 20 bottles every time I step in the club in 2012! Your boy Jim Jones will be goin' absolutely stupid! High heels, red bottoms! A lotta cash! You know the rules!" That's what you call motherfuckin' Dipsetmania. Note: It costs $5,000.
Bob Sinclar's Winterland. Saturday, December 31, 10 p.m., Amnesia, 136 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-538-2424; amnesiamiami.com. Tickets cost $50 to $150 plus fees via wantickets.com. Ages 21 and up. No, it doesn't snow in South Beach. (Well, unless we're talking about that strange incident when Collins Avenue got buried under a nice, thick blanket of pure, uncut cocaine during the mid-'80s.) But so what? That doesn't mean Amnesia co-owner and French party boy Bob Sinclar can't host a New Year's Eve party incongruously called Winterland where everyone's sweaty, tanned, and shirtless.
Curren$y's Jet Life New Year's Eve. With Trademark Da Skydiver, Young Roddy, Fiend, Corner Boy P, Monsta Beatz, Street Wiz, and the rest of the Jet Life crew. Saturday, December 31, 9 p.m., Grand Central, 697 N. Miami Ave., Miami; 305-377-2277; grandcentralmiami.com. Tickets cost $50 to $10,000 via eventbrite.com. Ages 21 and up. When it comes to gettin' a taste of that sweet Jet Life stuff on NYE, your choices include all kinds of high-quality strains such as Holiday Special ($50), Diesel ($512), Bubble ($600), Purp ($875), Kush ($975), Skywalker ($1,200), OG VIP ($1,300), Houdini ($1,750), and even Jet Life Official VIP ($10,000). Each and every option is "supreme like a Cutlass." It just depends how high you wanna fly, son.
Busta Rhymes and Sebastian Ingrosso. With Mednas, Politik, and the Chainsmokers. Saturday, December 31, 9 p.m., LIV, 4441 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-674-4680; livnightclub.com. Tickets cost $575 to $25,000 plus fees via wantickets.com. Ages 21 and up. What do you get when famous spitter Busta Rhymes meets celebrated spinner Sebastian Ingrosso over champagne shots and exploding cigars on New Year's Eve? Well, a live rap performance and a DJ set. But it also sounds like the setup for a buddy comedy where the entire cast is talking superfast in Swedish while ringing in 2012 with fiendish fist-pumps and threats to "break ya fuckin' neck, bitch."
Ludacris. With Mike Posner, presented by Red Bull. Saturday, December 31, 11 p.m., Bayfront Park, 301 N. Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-358-7550; bayfrontparkmiami.com. Admission is free. All ages. If you are a baby mama or pimp daddy whose sitter called in "sick" at the last minute, here's your back-up party plan: Spend NYE with kid-friendly rapper and actor Ludacris at Bayfront Park. There's gonna be fireworks. Plus it's free, all-ages, and totally PG.
Birdman and the YMCMB Family. Hosted by BET's Terrence J. Saturday. December 31, 10 p.m., Dream Nightclub, 1532 Washington Ave., Miami Beach; 305-674-8018; dreammia.com. Tickets cost $30 to $5,000 plus fees via wantickets.com. Ages 21 and up. Valued by Forbes at about $100 million, Cash Money Records cofounder Birdman (AKA Bryan "Baby" Williams) is a very rich individual. So his throwdown at Dream will probably follow pretty much the same lavish script as his recent "Y.U. MAD" music video — i.e., $500,000 Maybach convertibles, a couple hundred gold-plated microphones, hoes in high-heels and swimsuits, random YMCMB cameos, and stacks of cash served on trays like cheeseburgers.
Deadmau5. With Stephan Luke, Troy Kurtz, and Damaged Goods. Sunday, January 1, 7 p.m., Fontainebleau Miami Beach, 4441 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-538-2000; fontainebleau.com. Tickets cost $125 to $15,000 plus fees via wantickets.com. Ages 21 and up. Congrats, club rats. If you brave Miami's three-day NYE maze and still somehow scratch, claw, and scramble your way to the Fontainebleau's poolside party with chief electro cheese-eater Deadmau5, you're truly a creature, like the mighty Mau5, that's capable of surviving the apocalypse. Uh, we mean New Year's Eve in SoFla. Now lay off the pills, foie gras, and edible gold. Detox with a dip in the swimming pit. Hole up in a Mau5 cabana. There are only 364 days till 2013.
