From Headliner to Historian, a full EDC recap

It’s safe to say, Electric Daisy Carnival has effectively ruined me for all other concert experiences. I know, I know, hyperbole much? But, no, really. At the moment, I feel like I’ve reached the summit, and it’s all downhill from here.

When EDC ended yesterday, with a completely compelling crescendo, courtesy of Galantis’ great set on the kineticFIELD stage, I suddenly felt a twinge of unexpected sadness – well, not sadness, actually. That’s not the right word. Sadness is what I think we all felt when we woke up Sunday morning and heard the news that someone at the festival had lost their life the night before. That’s true sadness. No, this was, I don’t know, deflation, I guess?

Pasquale Rotella probably put it best himself in a brief clip that concluded the festival’s stream. Reflecting on the first underground party he attended, he talked about how big of an impression and impact the party made on him — the art, the music, the community, the sense of togetherness – and how he didn’t want it to end.

As I’m sitting here reliving the whole thing, watching a rebroadcast of the stream, I know exactly what he means, as that’s how I feel after having attended EDC. I’ve never really experienced anything remotely like it – and keep in mind that I’ve been to countless hundreds of concerts in my lifetime, thousands, even. I still can’t shake the feeling. It was almost euphoric.

Like Pasquale expressed, I vividly felt a feeling of, yeah, deflation when the sun came up, signaling the end of this exhilarating, exhausting, emotional, tumultuous and at times tedious three-day ride. Just like that, it was over. The mayor of crystal village (aka kineticFIELD) came out, mentioned how we’re all a part of the owl community, urged us to spread the love, and then poof! Done. Like all good rides, as soon as it ended, I immediately wanted to get back in line and strap back in again for another go.

It now makes total sense to me why people all over the country buy tickets to this thing without even knowing who’s on the bill. Doesn’t really matter. For one, you can trust the curation; this is one of those made for us by us type of scenarios. But beyond that, it’s really is the experience of a lifetime; there’s just so so much to do, so much to see, and you need all three-days to explore and fully absorb everything. The price of admission seems heady, but trust, it’s worth every cent.

I tried my best to experience everything EDC had to offer. And as you’ll see below, I took in as much as I possibly could, everything except perhaps getting on the carnival rides. I could show you all the pictures I’ve taken, probably a hundred or more, but they wouldn’t even come close to doing the festival justice.

So instead, here’s my notebook dump, a sampling of my most memorable moments, interspersed with some observations and a gripe or two. Let’s go ahead and dispense with the grievances first. Before I get back to gushing, allow me to gripe a little about the loathsome transportation travails I experienced. Keep reading for the full, ahem, shuttlebutt.

IF PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE, WE’RE ALL FREAKING SAINTS

There really is no quick and inexpensive way to get to EDC. Just the same, if you faced with choosing between sitting in traffic for seven straight days or stepping foot onto a shuttle, pick option “none of the above,” and take a helicopter. Yes, you will probably have to skip some meals for a while, and perhaps a mortgage payment or two, but in the end, you will save yourself miles of misery.

If you read about my trip out to the Speedway on Friday, you know it was rather painless. The polar opposite was true on Saturday morning. I left the festival not too long after sunrise at around 5:30 a.m. or so, and I didn’t make it back to the parking lot at 9th and Fremont until about 7:30 or so.

Can’t blame the traffic. The ride back didn’t take much more time than the commute there. No, sir, the agonizing delay was spurred by the fact that I waited until the very last note rang out on Saturday morning to head for the exit. I quickly discovered that this was a monumentally stupid decision on my part, as I was greeted by the most excruciatingly long line in the history of excruciatingly long lines.

The way it was set up, we were all herded like cattle into a maze-like TSA queue made of zig-zagging barricades. It was an ugly scene. We were all exhausted, smelly and gross and some of us looked incredibly silly in the sober light of morning. Worse, we were pressed in together so tightly that it literally felt like everyone was sweating on me.

Turns out, that wasn’t sweat. My neighbors and I were clammy from the overhead mist spraying on us, which coated our skin in a light layer of slime. Being that it was barely after the crack of dawn and not at all hot yet, the cooling mechanism, while certainly appreciated, seemed unnecessary.

Heaping coals of aggravation onto an already roaring fire of disgruntlement, when I finally made it to the front of the line, I was informed that I was not in the right queue with my zone one bracelet. I was in the zone nine line, a fact that somehow escaped my notice and no one bothered to tell me. Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing anybody directing traffic.

Anyhow, luckily I wasn’t sent to the back of the line – which meant nobody was subjected to my non-PLUR traits — and the tension eased considerably when I finally made my way onto the bus. It was a notably tranquil ride. Everyone else was as exhausted as I was, and so all you heard the whole ride was the sawing of logs and a whirring motor.

DON’T CALL US, WE’LL CALL YOU, UNLESS WE CAN’T

One of the smart and helpful things Insomniac put in place at EDC was charging stations, dedicated bays of them, along with lockers that allegedly had the same capabilities. Though I’m not sure how much good that did for anyone. I don’t know if what just me and courtesy of my crappy carrier, but I couldn’t make a phone call or send a text to anyone anywhere on site to save my life.

At the EDMBiz expo last week, we stopped by the Fire Chat booth, a company employing Bluetooth technology in attempt to remedy this sort of thing by allowing folks to connect with each other to chat and send messages to one another without relying on a cell signal. Don’t know if the app actually worked, because I forgot to install it, but if it did, talk about a godsend.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Enough complaining. Now for the good stuff. One of the most unexpectedly gratifying moments of the festival came on Saturday night, when I enjoyed dinner on the Café Deck overlooking kineticFIELD under the watchful gaze of the ever-present owl.

While the view was obviously splendid, and the soundtrack was likewise swell, with Laidluke serenading us during dinner and Deorro providing the accompaniment for desert, the food was the star attraction.

Despite being served on cardboard plates (which is actually more my speed), dinner was positively delectable, all four courses – sushi, kale salad, chicken and waffles, meatballs and a desert featuring some sort of delicious s’mores-style donut contraption – and it was cooked to perfection and presented with care by chef Keven Alan Lee, who came out and greeted us personally. Even though I’m admittedly a simpleton and have the untrained palette of a fussy four-year-old, even I know this meal was exquisite.

FEAR THE LIONS ROAR

In terms of performances, Seven Lions provided the most memorable and high-five worthy moment of the festival during his predawn set on the Cosmic Meadow. At exactly 4:30 a.m., and I mean on the dot, he dropped a perfectly timed sample, dialogue from the hotel casino scene from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” where you can hear Johnny Depp’s inner dialogue as the Good Doctor: “Who are these people, these faces? Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there were a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning. What was I doing here? What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story?” Brilliant. Just absolutely brilliant. Listen to the full set here.

SET YOUR GOALS AND ACHIEVE THEM. OR NOT.

Insomniac, which clearly puts a priority on pleasing us Headliners, was good enough to include a helpful checklist of festival goals, a bullet list of objectives to accomplish before the end of the electronic extravaganza, evidently, printed on the back of the map the promoter provided, pointing out that “it’s all about the experience.”

Of those 39 items, I can proudly say that I checked off 19, a respectable outing on my part, even if I do say so myself – hey, that’s almost half! Here’s a list of the things I can safely stamp with “mission accomplished,” followed by a file of fantastic fails, revealing that I’m not nearly as adventurous as I think I am.

Done and done, captain:

Download the Insomniac app to get up-to-date info
Hug a fellow headliner
Explore Carnival Square
Catch an artist you’ve never heard before
Work your way to the front row for your favorite artist’s set
Indulge your harder side at wasteLAND
Perform a random act of kindness
Shake your boots at neonGARDEN
Feel the low-end rush at bassPOD
Make some new friends
Zen out in the Buddha Garden
Lose yourself deep in the depths of circuitGROUNDS
Listen to a full set without checking your phone
Observe one of many murals being painted
Locate the art cars – you never know what you may find!
Unwind at Palace Blue
Witness a wedding at EDC town chapel
See a surprise act
Watch the sun rise from kineticFIELD

And now for the, uh, yeah, not so much:

Fuel up with a gourmet bite from a delicious new food truck
Create and trade one-of-a-kind kandi
Skip down Rainbow Road
Do the electric slide or the running man at the funkHOUSE
Let loose and learn a new dance move
Pose for a photo with friends overlooking cosmicMEADOW
Start a conga line
Refresh yourself with a fruit smoothie
Accept kandi from a stranger
Hop on a carnival ride
Dance with a totem raised high for all to see
Snap a selfie at the top of a Ferris wheel
Take a picture with the giant Electric Daisy
Send a postcard to a friend form the post office in Carnival Square
Frolic through Dandelion Forest
Join in the parade
Take a picture at Carnival Square with the EDC characters
Take the Caterpillar for a spin
Visit the video confessional booth in Carnival Square
Participate in all Crystal Village special ceremonies

THE BALLAD OF THE HEADLINERS AND HISTORIANS

Another thing that wowed me is just how much thoughtfulness goes into crafting this event. Even the smallest details aren’t overlooked, we’re talking infinitesimal items that no one would be the wiser if you skipped, like sending the tickets in specialized box filled with an assortment of artifacts.

“The experience starts when you buy the ticket,” Pasquale Rotella told me last week. “We want people to have a unique experience, and we want to wow people from the second they buy the ticket.”

There were plenty of other noteworthy touches applied by Rotella and his team. As testament to the notion that fans are fundamental, they’re referred to as “Headliners.” On a similar note, members of the media are considered “Historians” and even have that handle inscribed on their wristbands.

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

If that kind of care is given to seemingly insignificant initiatives, then it’s not at all surprising to see the level of consideration that goes into the staging. I had the chance to visit all of the seven stages, and it was striking how symbiotic the programming was for each individual stage.

kineticFIELD was easily my favorite stage for the sheer magnitude of the spectacle – the sprawling stage, the vibrant visuals, including the ever-present animatronic owl, the pyro, the fireworks, the Cirque du Soleil-esque production and storyline. Clearly the flagship stage, kineticFIELD hosted the most major of marquee acts like Kaskade, Avicii, Matthew Garrix, Tiesto, Above and Beyond, Alesso, Calvin Harris and Galantis. Honestly, I found it really hard to peel myself away from this stage.

My next favorite stage was circuitGROUNDS, which was no less impressive in terms of scale, but the pageantry was dialed back considerably in this massive hanger like structure. Outfitted with walls of video panels, circuitGROUNDS had blazing displays matched by a spectacular sound system, featuring acts like Krewella, Dada Life, Carnage, Flux Pavilion, Gaia and Andrew Rayel.

cosmicMEADOWS, meanwhile, was the one place on the grounds where you could either dance or stretch out on the grass or climb into the stands and sit and watch a set. The backdrop for the stage was basically made up of massive wall-to-wall LED screens. Saw some of my favorite sets here, including NGHTMRE and Kiesza, who I thought were rad, plus Pretty Lights, who delivered one of the stronger sets I’ve seen from him, Dillon Francis, whose absolutely destroyed on Sunday morning, and Seven Lions, who, hands down, threw down my favorite set of the entire festival (see the bit above about his perfectly timed sample).

I also really dug neonGARDENS, which was set up more like a traditional nightclub with a much less extravagant set up, letting the music move people on its own with the help of eye-popping imagery. Wasn’t hard to get lost in the groove in this space.

I likewise enjoyed funkHOUSE, which, true to its name, carried the vibe of hellacious houseparty with a giant boombox serving as the stage. Things got cracking when Z-Trip was behind the decks. “If you love music, this is your spot,” he insisted during the set I caught. “You’re going to hear a little bit of each stage in this spot.” As promised, he led us all over the place with a sampling of styles. It was a treat to get to hear him spinning a more EDM-centric set, as I’ve mostly seen him either rocking mash-ups or straight turntablism.

Didn’t spend as much time at the bassPOD and wasteLAND stages, as I would’ve liked, but I was exposed to plenty of the relenting and hard-edged low-end throughout the time I spent in the media room. Hits just as hard but doesn’t sound nearly as good. In fact, for much of that time, it felt like being trapped in the trunk of a 1980s Honda, bookended by two massive subs. Aesthetically, I totally dug the design of wasteLAND, which looked like it was ripped right out of the set of Mad Max. Also didn’t spend a great deal of time at Stage 7, so I can’t say much about that, unfortunately.

STREAMLINED PRODUCTION VALUES

I spent a fair amount of time watching at least a bit the stream each night, either before heading out to the fest, or while encamped in the media room, and I thought the overall production was stellar. With the quality of the camera work and the diversity of shots, from the vantage point of the crowd and the stage to the wide perspective shots, it gave you a legitimate sense of exactly what it was like to be there in person. What’s more, the interstitials in between sets, focusing on the disparate elements of the production, were informative and just long enough to be entertaining without disturbing the continuity of the sets.

TOTEM IF YOU GOT ‘EM

So one of the most fun features of the fest, at least for me, was walking around the festival grounds and checking out all the different totems – the individualized poles fans hold up to stand out in the crowd — and capturing the creativity and taking note of the trends.

My favorite totem featured Terrance and Phillip in front of a Canadian flag with the words, “Sorry for Bieber.” Elsewhere, I spotted a striking number of totems featuring vintage grade school pictures, the visages of various sports figures from Lebron James to Marshawn Lynch, along with a notable proclivity for Spongebob and films featuring Will Ferrell. Some were more clever than others, but they were all fun to look at it.

Read more from Dave Herrera at bestoflasvegas.com. Contact Dave at dherrera@reviewjournal.com.