EDC 2010 Review – Friday

Whew… *sigh*. After a solid day of EDC recovery I am ready to reflect back on the ridiculous weekend that just took place in Los Angeles. Seriously unbelievable, epic, good times all around. I will slowly re-tell my memories of what happened to you starting out with Friday.

Friday

Arrival

OK guys time to break a big fat secret. If you hate standing in line at EDC, it’s because you need to stop following everyone else and getting in the huge lines out front. Of course, I would only share this info after the event because I don’t want you crowding my “top-secret” back line. Even though it’s not really top-secret because it’s by all the parking lots and now there is a will call there, which totally negates any need to go to the front entrance.

Say it with me folks: next year, go through the rear.

Circuit Grounds

My friend (guest post extraordinaire Kiran P.) and I got in around 6:55 and headed straight to the 2nd main stage – the Circuit Grounds. It wasn’t as full as I expected (about 1/3 total capacity) and never really got that big the whole weekend, to my knowledge. Everyone headed to the Coliseum and stayed there the whole time, no surprise there. But props to Insomniac for trying.

First up was DJ Z-Trip. I’ve been a fan of Z-trip since the 90′s when I was into underground hip hop and he was pioneering the whole mash-up craze in the underground (check out Uneasy Listening – a mash-up mixtape masterpiece from the 90′s) . He is a party DJ at heart, always on the mic and always throwing down epic rock and hip hop tracks. This time, Z-trip also threw in a whole bunch of dub-step and drum and bass, just to spice things up. His set was awesome and one of the best of the day, according to myself and a lot of other people who I talked to. Playlist included California Love, Smells Like Teen Spirit, I’ve Got A Feelin, Sweet Shop, Paper Planes, and many more. Very nice job by Z-Trip, who is now a resident at club Rain on Fridays in Vegas.

After Z-trip was Basement Jaxx. I had no idea what to expect from their set, seeing as how their actual music is more of a jazzy-funky-non-ravey feel. They definitely dropped some interesting tracks. Again the theme was a lot of dub-step, bassy tracks, and ravey remixes of familiar songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody. Overall a great performance but I didn’t stay to the end because we then headed to the main main stage to catch Swedish House Mafia (SHM).

Kinetic Field

The first thing we realized when trying to go to the Coliseum was that our plan to head to the floor to see Swedish House Mafia and Kaskade was not going to come to fruition. The gates to head to the floor were closed. There was no line or any way to get down there, seemingly, unless you had VIP tickets (which I will definitely buy next year just for that reason). A girl in the stands told me they closed it down around 7:30 PM. Good thing I was prepared on Saturday…

So we went up into the side stands where there were seemingly just as many people, if not more, as on the floor. Everyone was dancing along to the sounds of Swedish House Mafia, who made sure to tell us who they were and who the members were approximately every 10 minutes. I hate, but I hate because I love. One of the things that I enjoyed the most about EDC this weekend was more mic presence. Save for Armin, Above and Beyond, Moby, and Basement Jaxx, every DJ I saw either got on the mic or had an MC along side (Lil Jon anyone?).

Swedish House Mafia started things off with Sander’s Reach Out and Leave the World Behind, then played a lot of classic old-school euro tracks (Show me Love, Tell Me Why, etc.) alongside some new intense house (Pacha on Acid, Ghost Ship). An awesome set, my favorite of Friday (very likely because it was at the epic Coliseum stage… ). They ended things with  Daft Punk’s One More Time and of course their new track – One.

Next up was Cali favorite Kaskade. No real surprises – very melodic, lots of female vocals and epic buildups, and seemingly Kaskade’s new trademark – white beachballs (which were also introduced during his set at Coachella). His set started out with the title track of his new album – Dynasty, and then proceeded into more Kaskade along with the acappella of “Your Loving Arms” over Guetta and Afrojack’s “Louder than Words”. The man just can’t play a track without female vocals. But it’s okay; that’s how he makes the big bucks. The fireworks really got going during this set and I was very happy to see fireworks all night after it got dark, coming from various stages around the grounds (the biggest coming from Kinetic Field of course).  After listening to some good ol’ Kaskade we headed back to the Circuit Grounds to hear Moby.

Circuit Grounds – Pt. 2

Moby was in full force by the time we got there, playing a long 1 hr 45 min set. I thought a lot of people would be there to see him seeing as how he put on a good show at 2008′s EDC but apparently that wasn’t the case. The area was no more, if not less, full than it was during Z-Trip and Basement Jaxx. Unfortunately the crowd was just 100% into the Coliseum. This affected my Moby experience but I can still say that I liked it overall. He mainly played old-school techno/trance music mixed in with a few Moby remixes such as Porcelain (would have loved to hear more of those…). Based on what I heard about his 08 set, it seems like Moby tried a new direction this time and I wasn’t quite feelin it, but I wouldn’t say it was bad either. I’d see him again.

After this set I was pretty beat; we caught the end of Jack Beats at Cosmic Meadow along with the beginning of Armand Van Helden’s set. Seeing as how it was all bass-thumping intense electro-house, I couldn’t handle it. We walked back to the car and left the grounds at around 1:30 AM. Overall a good friday night – very crowded, a little less than Saturday but probably just a little. Insomniac did a good split this year, bringing in the house crowd on Friday with Deadmau5 and SHM drawing in the numbers, and then the big Saturday crowd (no work, Armin, Above and Beyond, Afrojack, etc.). Well played sirs. I’m sure they made a killing this weekend.

I didn’t catch any of Deadmau5′s set but from what I heard it was very similar to the set he played at Coachella, which I saw, so I wasn’t too disappointed. It looks like the glowing cube was back, along with the glowing mask. I’m not a huge fan of Deadmau5 sets – a little too intense for me – but for those who are into his stuff I’m sure it was a good way to end EDC Friday night.

As for us, we got a very lucky parking spot right near the entrance, got in before things got out of hand, and drove home to rest up for Saturday night. That review will come soon…

© 2010, M Silin. All rights reserved.