All you “EDC is too commercial”ers out there need some serious lessons on how to have fun. Although the festival may have been a bit of a Frave (fraternity rave), I had a fricken blast. I’m sad to say I only attended the Electric Daisy Carnival in Orlando on Friday, but man was it worth the drive up from Miami. Of course, it took us a good six hours to get to Orlando (after thirty-five billion detours), but we arrived at our hotel, quickly put on our festie gear, and headed out.
Gaby (the mybeatFix creator) and I would like to give a big thanks to Jake Jefferson for hooking it up on our EDC trip. Not only did we get to sit in on dinner with a bunch of the DJs, but we also got to get a little pregaming in with them (who knew DJ Craze loved blueblerries?) So big ups Jakey, we love you and we’re sorry we’re the worst drivers in the world.
Since we ended up getting to Orlando a little late (which resulted in us a getting to EDC a little late), we arrived to just in time to catch the end of Funkagenda playing on mainstage. Once he closed up, Chris Lake’s set followed. Since Orlando is smack in the middle of all the big universities in Florida there were college kids (who love sing-a-long EDM songs) galore, and the crowd for Lake was crazy. His set was pretty mainstream, but personally, I thought it was a great one and very appropriate. He had everyone cheering, and for a festival like EDC Orlando, his set was exactly what everyone wanted to hear.
After wondering around a bit and meeting up with some of our friends, we found ourselves by the front stage called the bassPOD…which was completely empty. Not only was it empty, but the stage next to it, neonGARDEN had a max of 30 people at it, even at the peak of the night. Not sure if this was expected or not (I certainly hope not), but the money spent to build those two stages and to hire the 18 DJs a night who played on them could have been budgeted much better. Since main stage, called kineticFIELDS and circuitGROUNDS (the fourth stage) had such massive lineups that no one wanted to miss, it left the other two stages people-less. Now, I’m not saying that any of the artists who played at bassPOD or the neonGARDEN didn’t deserve to be there, I just wish some of them like 12th planet and Kastle could have played on the other stages where the crowds were insane. Then again, there would have been no way to fit all the DJs on to those two stages within the times the festival was open. But come on, at least set the place up in a more practical manner so all the stages would have been used!
Now lets get into some more music.
The only time I’d ever seen Porter Robinson play before this past weekend in Orlando was at this year’s Ultra Music Festival. After seeing/listening to the majority of his performance at EDC, I kind of regret not sticking around for his whole set at UMF. A big highlight of my night was when he dropped his new song “The State.” It was the craziest I saw the crowd at the circuitGROUNDS stage go all night. It’s pretty impressive that the electro producer is only eighteen years and getting endorsements from big names like Deadmau5.
Another DJ whose been giving big ups to Porter, well, HiS nAmE iS SkRiLlExxxxx. In previous festival reviews, I’ve mentioned that Sonny Moore (Skrillex) always has the craziest, head banging, amped-up crowd, and he did it again. I think Sonny, along with Dutch house DJ Afrojack, get the crowd so fired up because their songs are the most recognizable.
Closing up the night was none other than Mr. Tiesto himself. Although he might not be my very favorite DJ, I’ve always been a fan of Tiesto because I’ve always loved trance (even if he doesn’t play it as much anymore — or at all). Lately though, I feel that his performances have been so “hit or miss.” For instance, I loved him at UMF 2011, but not so much at this EDC. After watching Porter perform a sick electro set, Tiesto leaning towards the more electro genre didn’t really do it for me. I mean, he didn’t even play Beautiful World, one of his biggest hits of the year with Mark Knight. Also, I don’t think it’s to much too expect a ridiculously loud and exciting show from one of the biggest headliners of the whole festival. I always hope that after dancing for hours (which often makes me a bit tired), the closer will wake me back up, but Tiesto didn’t. So I’m rating this one: MISS.
With new music festivals popping up all over the world, it’s gonna be tough to like everything about every single one of them. For me, all I need is a solid crew, good tunes and my dancing shoes to have a great time where ever I go. Not every DJ is always in their ideal location or playing at a venue they’d prefer for their music to be heard, so sometimes it’s tough for them to know what tracks to choose and what’s really going to get the crowd going. So, even though the Electric Daisy Carnival in Orlando may have been a set up in a bit of an unorganized fashion (it was the festivals first time in Orlando,) I had a blast. Agree or disagree, these are just my opinions beatFixers! Thoughts?
-A
PS: Who ever thinks the hats pictured below are killer cool, I’m sorry, they are pathetic. If you own one, burn it and please never ever wear it to a festival or out in public ever, EVER again. You look as stupid in them as those promoters who hold up empty bottles at nightclubs, but then again, they’re trying to look “LEGIT” too.
Photos courtesy of Brohats.com!
