Exclusive Photos: Electric Daisy Carnival EDC 2010: Will.i.am, Armin Van Buuren, Steve Aoki, even Lindsay Lohan
- Author: Faith-Ann Young
- Posted on: Monday June 28, 2010 at 5:00 PM
- Filed under: music, will.i.am, lil jon, black eyed peas, a-trak, benny benassi, moby, basement jazz, felix cartel, duck sauce, mstrkrft, swedish house mafia, techno, house, rave, fashion, electronic music, neon, fireworks, armin van buuren, lindsay lohan, electric daisy carnival, deadmau5
Where can you find Lindsay Lohan, Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am, Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, midgets dressed as monkeys, and 100,000 people dancing till dawn?
The Electric Daisy Carnival, of course.
RECAP: The 14th Annual Electric Daisy Festival (or EDC) is currently held in four separate cities: Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, and Puerto Rico but still remains a largely "underground" phenomenon; for instance, in Los Angeles, where the largest show was held Friday and Saturday, June 25th and 26th, 2010, it was 'business as usual' until you entered USC's campus and saw teams of youngsters in day-glo and tu-tus converging towards the exposition park like swarming bees. Once onsite, you catch on: The festival is a rave in the traditional sense. Kids dress up in ridiculous day-glo outfits, pacifiers in mouths, glowsticks in hand as 150 of the world's best electronic DJs coerced exuberant dance revolutions at each stage. However, while this scene may not seem culturally mainstream, it is currently the largest music festival in America - according to numbers of people per day (i.e. Friday boasted 85,000 people; Saturday at capacity at 100,000. [ah, to put that in perspective, that's the entire population of Boulder, CO. Yikes!])
What made this year distinct? People liked Will.i.am's performance so much they tried to bum-rush fences - [translation: not good idea], Steve Aoki coerced Weezer lead singer River's Cuomo - complete with his horn-rimmed glasses - to sing during his set, Italian stallion Benny Benassi got the crowd singing in unison to a sick Red Hot Chili Peppers "Otherside" Remix, Lil Jon was seen pouring champagne and leading crowd cheers on whatever stages he was invited to traverse, A-Trak and Armand Van Helden (the duo behind the new outfit, "Duck Sauce") DJ'ed in front of a gigantic, blow-up duck. The festivities carried on way into dawn both nights until Armand Van Buuren closed everything down Saturday (err...Sunday depending on how you count) with a flurry of fireworks that rivaled the upcoming 4th of July. (Seriously, see the picts below.) Oh - lest we forget - even the infamous party scenster Lindsey Lohan showed up (with court-ordered bracelet.) [You know it's a party when....]
Bottom line is if you haven't yet heard of the Electric Daisy Festival, mark your calendars for next year. It sincerely lives up to it's "carnival" name - with ferris wheels, clowns on stilts, fire-flaming trees, and various Burning Man-esque gymnasts and carni folk - including wicked witches of the West, Jokers, and yes, midgets. Meanwhile, it is by far one of the most impressive festival productions on the market: each stage is pumped full of confetti, stage-of-the-art audio systems, somersaulting dancers on trampolines, full-flamed goose-bump inducing flame-torches, and insane this-can't-be-legal pyrotechnics. Even if you've never picked up a glow stick in your life, you will be amused by the beauty and kinetic energy that comes from thousands of people dancing to the same beat - stage after stage, hour after hour, for two full days straight.
EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS:
Lil Jon with Ben Benassi
Moby
Armin Van Buuren greeting fans
FINALE on Saturday
Will.i.am - Jump Around Remix
Benny Benassi - Other Side (Red Hot Chili Peppers Remix)
Duck Sauce - Barbara Streisand
Steve Aoki's Stage Dive
Photos and commentary: Faith-Ann Young
RELATED CONTENT
COMMENTS
“ RAD photos! Looks like a freakin party. ”
“ that looks like fun... ”
