July 5, 2012 · by Rishi Bhatnagar · in Music
Retrieved from: http://www.therighthemisphere.org/?p=67
Over the past year, my close buddies and I have gotten sucked into the electric dance music (EDM) scene, attending concerts in San Francisco and even going as far as Sacramento (still don’t know why it’s California’s capitol) to see our favorite DJ’s. We’ve literally seen everyone, R3HAB, Hardwell, Axwell, Kaskade, David Guetta, Morgan Page, you name it and we were there. It’s not so much the rave culture that we’re attracted to but the layering of drum beats under catchy melodies, synthesized sounds and instrumentals, not to mention it makes for some pretty sick running music. The result is a rich textured, energetic and vibrant sound that can’t be fully appreciated through headphones. Conceptually it utilizes the same theory as the Modern orchestra, just speed up the adagio to an allegro and add sequencers and synthesizers. Dare I say it’s this generation’s classical music? In the end EDM elicits almost every emotion without using lyrics.
Day one, are excitement was due more to the anticipation of not knowing what to expect. We chugged gallons of water (Vegas is unforgiving when it comes to heat), bought matching bright neon t-shirts, and prepped for our departure from The Strip, twenty-five miles north to the motor speedway where over 100,000 people would converge. Immediately upon entering the first thing I noticed was the vast majority of people in attendance were teenagers. Despite the strict security checkpoints and heavy police presence, many of their eyes were glazed over…
We headed over to Kinetic Field, the largest stage area, which was packed close to 50,000 people watching Hardwell, who was barely visible on stage. About 100 search lights criss-crossed above us synchronized to the beat and at one point parachuters attached to sparklers gliding down from a helicopter. From a musical standpoint there was nothing that we hadn’t already heard so we explored the other stages. That night we saw Kasakade and Above & Beyond, however the one set that blew us off our feet was at the Basspod stage by a young DJ out of San Antonio, Texas named Crizzly. Literally this 17 year old created a new genre of music called crunkstep which essentially takes heavy dubstep drum patterns and throws them into a blender with hip-hop. We coined him “disgustingly good” because the only word that came to mind while hearing his set was disgusting. We ended up leaving the speed way around 3:30 AM and not surprisingly there was a line of cars waiting to enter.
The last two nights were pretty uneventful. The second night was cut short due to high winds that threatened to blow down some of the stages, yet I think we were more thankful for the excuse it gave us to go home early as the fatigue was finally settling in. The highlight of the third night was the eight dollar chicken burrito at one of the food tents because we could barely keep our eyes open and David Guetta refused to play anything that wasn’t on the Billboard Top 40 list.
Overall, EDC left me asking the unavoidable, is EDM just a phase that’s run its course through the US? Some say it maxed out and the moment it went mainstream was the beginning of its downfall. Whether or not EDM survives depends on artists like Crizzly who push the envelope and bring the new subgenres to light. Double click the video of Crizzly below.
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