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TFr years, millions of fans and at least as many memories: ten years ago, Electric Daisy Carnival first landed in Las Vegas in a cocoon of light and sound.
The world’s largest dance music festival, EDC now attracts nearly half a million fans each year.
That’s a lot of fuzzy boots, brother.
We literally spent hundreds of hours figuring it out. Here are 10 particularly memorable moments since EDC moved to Las Vegas Motor Speedway from its hometown of Los Angeles in 2011.
The saxophonist is coming
Because it’s not a party – never, ever, already – until Kenny G is in the house.
That’s right, the curly-haired saxophonist is the lively, breathable, horny embodiment of a good time. And that’s what everyone had when Kenny G appeared with Ookay on DJ-producer hit “Thief” in 2018.
Go ahead, name a better place for EDC guests.
Drake with Metro Boomin in 2017?
Please.
John Legend with Tiesto in 2016?
Double please.
Walter White with Above & Beyond in 2015?
Wait what?
Yeah, we’re talking about this Walter white
“Say my name!” he asked, bellowing one of his character’s signature phrases in a tone reminiscent of a disgruntled orc.
“Walter White!” the crowd screamed.
“You are (expletively) right,†Bryan Cranston said with a nod of approval.
And with that, the “Breaking Bad†star lowered his arm and hit play, kicking off the 2015 EDC of UK trance trio Above & Beyond with the song named after said character.
Somewhere, Jesse Pinkman was simmering with envy.
Dig the totems
Totem poles are homemade signs affixed to long poles that groups of friends use to locate themselves in crowds. Every year, fans become more and more inventive in their creation.
Here are our favorites for 2017:
1. “My probation officer doesn’t know I’m here”
It’s funny because it’s true.
2. “Unfair Krusty Krab”
It is clearly time for SpongeBob and Squidward to unionize.
3. “I like drums and bass”
The “d” and “b” have been eliminated by X.
4. “Ground control swept my weed”
Was that why the security was so cold?
5. Tiger Woods’ passport photo
No word was needed.
The “human hand”
One Saturday night in June two years ago we smashed a full-size car with a giant robot fist.
Yes, there is always an abundance of gnarled art installations at EDC.
During the weekend in question, for example, there were 80-foot-high towers adorned with flowers that spit flames, sculptures resembling trees that spit flames, flames that spit flames, etc.
But without a doubt the coolest attraction that year – or arguably any other – was “The Hand of Man”, a huge robot glove with which you picked up a junkyard wreckage and destroyed it again.
Here’s how it worked: you sat on a hydraulic platform, slipped your pathetic human hand into a metal glove contraption that controlled the robot’s awesome hand, slowly maneuvered your hand down, backed up the wrist to lift the flattened future car, then dropped the suction cup in an intensely satisfying whoosh.
And then it was time for a big giant high-five with a metal hand for us.
Drew Carey’s bad trip
“It was, like, crazy, this place,†Drew Carey begins.
He’s talking about EDC.
“All my friends over there are all on drugs – except me, because I’m the host of ‘The Price is Right’,” Carey recalls with a wink, followed by a cordial and knowing laugh, then that he recounts his EDC adventures a year. in a hilarious segment aired in Comedy Central’s “This Is Not Happening” series – Search for it on Google. This is a family publication; we cannot provide the link.
Carey then remembers that her “friend” had taken a number of mind-altering drugs and had a nervous breakdown involving the cast members of “Dancing With the Stars,” The Eagles, and a few frightened tourists.
“Oh man, I think I broke my brain,†his friend confesses the next morning.
You will laugh, you will cry (to laugh), you will tell, maybe.
Skydiving in EDC
On the EDC grounds, there is such an assortment of shows for the eyeballs to gorge on that you can be excused for not looking up. But there’s always something going on in the “electric sky†above EDC. Of course, there’s the nighttime fireworks display, which feels like July 4th set to a rhythm that liquefies the spinal cord.
And, in 2011, during EDC’s first year in Vegas, the Red Bull Air Force parachuted on the speedway.
Of course, they shot flames 25 feet from their feet. “Hope we wow people,†said one of the skydivers in a video clip recorded before their jump.
Mission accomplished, man.
The collapse of DJ Khaled
Trains always run on time at EDC. This is one of the best things about the event: For a festival that has hundreds of performances every year, things run like clockwork – we’re talking atomic clockwork.
Here’s how it works: If you’re late on stage, it’s out of your playing time. No exceptions. So don’t be late.
And few acts are – and then there was hip-hop super-producer DJ Khaled in 2017.
While there has been a lot of debate since about why Khaled was late, with the rap hit-maker later citing technical issues, which EDC also disputed in a subsequent press release, it was a mess when it all fell apart.
Khaled came out 30 minutes late on the Cosmic Meadow stage, and after the very first song the sound cut off, which took another 20 minutes to fix, leaving him only 10 minutes to play – at his distinct agitation. (“Don’t disrespect my set like that!†He barked at the sound guys.) Khaled opened the show with one of his biggest hits, “All I Do Is Winâ€, but he took an L that night.
Wild weather
Oh, being the shirtless guy in hot pants on the final night of EDC 2019 – yes, such a man was in the crowd. It was a full winter coat weather, cold enough to turn Red Bulls vodka into slush.
OK, maybe the temperatures weren’t quite this low, but it was definitely like this on one of the coldest, windiest nights of the festival.
The wind sometimes wreaks havoc at EDC. It closed the Kinetic Field stage late Saturday night in 2019. And on a Saturday night seven years earlier, that led to the entire festival shutting down… almost.
In one of EDC’s coolest moments – literally and figuratively – Steve Aoki performed an impromptu set just before dawn in the grass near the Cosmic Meadow stage when all official stages were closed in due to bad weather. That didn’t stop Aoki from diving onto the stage and boarding an inflatable raft on the outstretched arms of the remaining crowd.
Somehow, the man put on a show even when the show was technically shut down.
Kaskade requisitions an art cart
Everyone knows the art cars at EDC – they’re hard to miss, those massive, motorized party platforms designed like pirate ships and giant boom boxes and the like. Various DJs perform there; sometimes fans can get on board.
In 2017, however, superstar DJ-producer Kaskade took things up a notch – or five – by showing up out of the blue and performing a surprise set on Kalliope art auto.
To put it in perspective, Kaskade is the sort of well-known EDM headliner who normally performs on the massive Kinetic Fields stage in front of tens of thousands of fans.
And it all went down at sunrise.
There is a lesson here: stay until the end, children.
Tiesto pays tribute to a deceased friend
The electronic dance music community has lost one of its biggest stars. Tiesto has lost a friend.
This happened simultaneously when Swedish DJ-producer Avicii committed suicide in April 2018. He was 28 years old.
A month later, Tiesto paid homage to Avicii during his performance Kinetic Field, where he played Avicii hits such as “Waiting for Love” and “Levels” for over 10 minutes.
“It was a really special moment,†Tiesto recalls. “People gathered on the main stage. They laughed, cried and were silent at the same time. It was a really crazy time. This is the kind of moment you want to create – the emotional moments.
Those who last.
Contact Jason Bracelin at [email protected] or 702-383-0476. Follow @ jbracelin76 on Instagram
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