continued from Day 1 review
Day 2 saw things at the jungle heat up to extreme highs. While the temperature was technically cooler on the thermometer at the zoo on Saturday, a mass influx of new animals left the tents and main-stage feeling hot!
The first act to get things started on Saturday for EDMBoston was Vermont native Morgan Page. Notorious for his fresh, hard hitting progressive house sets, Morgan Page brings a lot of energy to his sets. When he visited Boston back in December 2011 he left EDMBoston very impressed with his club performance. What would he be like in a festival setting?
Charged with entertaining the Hilltop tent, the largest of the 3 tents, for 1.25 hours, Page had his work cut out for him.
The great thing about the Hilltop tent was the fantastic job the sound team did spreading speakers throughout the tent. By having speakers staggered around the perimeter, and down the middle of the ceiling, it prevented sound from leaking in from the other tents. Not to be outdone, the visual team also put together a hell of a display. Words can’t describe it so we put a picture below:
Given the tremendous effort put into display and sound, Page didn’t let it go unutilized. Immediately Page pulled in a large crowd into the tent, which for an early set time it was an amazing feat in and of itself. He wasted no time in getting the crowd fired up with his self made bootleg “Video Bong”. Page started off hard hitting and aggressive for early in the day, yet we loved every second of it. Hands in the air with meaty progressive drops carried throughout the set that featured lots of Morgan page bootlegs, mashups and originals. His way with progressive house keeps the tiresome genre interesting and fresh. A big reaction came when Morgan played a mashup of his hit tune “Body Work” with Swanky Tunes’ “The Edge”. In addition, Page played some trickery on the crowd with his Mashup of IN the air vs Avicii’s “Levels”. Before you judge, Page took a quarter note from the famous track and injected it into “In the Air” just to mess with the crowd a little. It was genius and funny and didn’t interrupt the flow of the track. It was great to see an artist with some life and sass on stage.
Mord Fustang was charged with keeping the party going at the Hilltop stage. We hung outto hear his first 30 but it was hard to stay entertained after Morgan Paged rocked us with such an energetic set. Mord Fustang played a lot of interesting tracks and was fun to listen to, but he came up short in carrying Page’s energy forward. Despite this we still love Mord Fustang and his set still more then qualifies as something you should download and hear! We can’t wait to see him play a solo set as opposed to being squished into a festival lineup.
Shifting gears, chasing more energy we went to the expansive main stage. Like most main stages, Electric Zoos was gigantic and its vertical scale was consuming. Under its top, the main stage housed 55 automated hoisted LCD screens. As a result, each artists visual team was able to make a custom setup that prevented the main stage visuals from getting tired from day 1.
It was 5 o’clock and Sander Van Doorn had begun laying work down on the crowd. We were focused on taking some fan photos in the photo pit until the music distracted us to the point that we couldn’t any longer. Sander Van Doorn was putting on an electro/progressive clinic that was complex and mysterious. Literally, there were track ID’s spread throughout the set that were dynamite and earned Sander his well known reputation. It was our first time seeing him, and hearing Koko on the festival speakers was heaven. He was the first artist of the weekend to utilize the power of the main stage.
Dada Life didn’t let the crowd skip a beat after Sander came off stage. Their champagne and bananas antics were a small tidbit of what went down on the main stage. The duo had massive lettered balloons spelling out “Dada Life” on stage. The sausage-fattened tunes rang throughout the set with small increments of time to rest in between massive drops. While the duo didn’t throw much different material at the crowd, they didn’t seem to mind, as they were losing their shit mindlessly. Dada Life built the energy slowly from the start of their set. They opened with a quick tease of “Kick Out the Epic Motherfucker” and went into their remix of Kaskade’s “Love”. The duo finally smacked the crowd across the face with sausage fat 3 songs into the set, with their remix of “Big Bad Wolf”. When the duo finished their set they still had more entertainment in for the crowd. The jumped down to the photo pit and popped some bottles of champagne into the crowd and took a champagne shower. To spread the love they ran up the middle of the photo pit screaming and engaging the crowd with their crazy eyes and champagne madness. The crowd was blown away.
Fortunately, the Electric Zoo planners gave the crowd a 10 minute break at the main stage. This was instrumental after the Dada Life set to not only rest, but to let the sun set and the vibe change. When the sky was a dark blue, Axwell’s intro greeted the crowd. “New York…Are You Ready?” read the screen. He opened the set after his dramatic intro with the charging progressive tune “Ran Tam Tam” which gave way to the familiar greyhound and then to the stuttering, snare drumming tune of “Azumba” (Sebastien Ingrosso cut). Azumba’s dirty drum beat had us losing it in the pit. However, Axwell’s set would continue in the same pattern throughout the night offering smatterings of different interesting tracks and regressions into his catalog of old familiar songs. It appeared Axwell was trying to balance the act of giving what his new mainstream fans wanted and keeping long time fans interested. After a while of the back and forth act we ended up leaving, as we didn’t want to waste time at a festival listening to “in my mind” for the umpteenth time. However, to Axwell’s credit, people loved his set and the crowd was fully engaged. We loved the way he opened the set and you would have been hard pressed to not find us or anyone dancing in the pit. By playing remixes and bootlegs of the mainstream songs he was able to keep things interesting but not unfamiliar. Nevertheless, we felt it challenging to stay enthused and left for Sasha.
By the time we walked over to Sasha and got into a good spot, it hit us. Festival fatigue. We were so disappointed because Sasha was someone we were really looking forward to all week. We listened on as the artist looped and built energy threw his set and hit the crowd with well-timed drops. It was house heaven! Everyone in the tent was having a phenomenal time and we were jealous that we weren’t on the dance floor raving with everyone. However, it didn’t matter. The visuals in the Sunday school kept us well entertained and the energy in the tent fulfilled. The stage was composed of contorted school buses that projected 3d mapped lasers. If you’ve seen Avicii’s face, it is the same technology and it’s amazing!
After a dose of house we shifted gears to the long time DJ, Benny Bennassi, at the Hilltop tent. The famous Italian DJ was fresh off a gig in Boston, the night prior to E-Zoo, and we wanted share some love with him for visiting our hometown. In addition, Bennassi was the headliner for the Hilltop tent. The infamous Italian kicked off his set with his new Bob Marley remix of “Jammin” but the real excitement would come 27 minutes into the set when Bennassi unleashed his tune “House Music”. During the breakdown the crowd clapped to the beat before being hurled into mayhem surrounding the drop. A fantastic track to be heard live. Other notable tracks in the set was Benny Bennassi’s remix of The Doors “Hello I Love You”.
Big moments in Bennassi’s set were plentiful and he utilized different moments in his sets to highlight the many sounds he has worked with over the years. “Glowing in the Dark (chooky remix)” charged hard with its synth surges that were aggressive electro that hit like a dubstep track could while maintaining Bennassi’s notorious electro sound. We loved at the 58 minute mark in his set when the build up to the drop went silent and the LCD & lights to black. When the drop of “perfect storm” by Punk is pink the lights fired back up as every jumped. Benny closed down his headlining set with a remixed classic, “Satisfaction J Rabbit Dubstep Remix,” the crowd went wild.
Day 2 was an excellent time that harnessed a massive crowd’s energy, all while building towards day 3 of the festival. While what was to be expected on day 3 was a mystery, we knew it offered up a jam packed lineup.
Stay Tuned to read about Day 3!
Day 2 saw things at the jungle heat up to extreme highs. While the temperature was technically cooler on the thermometer at the zoo on Saturday, a mass influx of new animals left the tents and main-stage feeling hot!
The first act to get things started on Saturday for EDMBoston was Vermont native Morgan Page. Notorious for his fresh, hard hitting progressive house sets, Morgan Page brings a lot of energy to his sets. When he visited Boston back in December 2011 he left EDMBoston very impressed with his club performance. What would he be like in a festival setting?
Charged with entertaining the Hilltop tent, the largest of the 3 tents, for 1.25 hours, Page had his work cut out for him.
The great thing about the Hilltop tent was the fantastic job the sound team did spreading speakers throughout the tent. By having speakers staggered around the perimeter, and down the middle of the ceiling, it prevented sound from leaking in from the other tents. Not to be outdone, the visual team also put together a hell of a display. Words can’t describe it so we put a picture below:
Given the tremendous effort put into display and sound, Page didn’t let it go unutilized. Immediately Page pulled in a large crowd into the tent, which for an early set time it was an amazing feat in and of itself. He wasted no time in getting the crowd fired up with his self made bootleg “Video Bong”. Page started off hard hitting and aggressive for early in the day, yet we loved every second of it. Hands in the air with meaty progressive drops carried throughout the set that featured lots of Morgan page bootlegs, mashups and originals. His way with progressive house keeps the tiresome genre interesting and fresh. A big reaction came when Morgan played a mashup of his hit tune “Body Work” with Swanky Tunes’ “The Edge”. In addition, Page played some trickery on the crowd with his Mashup of IN the air vs Avicii’s “Levels”. Before you judge, Page took a quarter note from the famous track and injected it into “In the Air” just to mess with the crowd a little. It was genius and funny and didn’t interrupt the flow of the track. It was great to see an artist with some life and sass on stage.
Mord Fustang was charged with keeping the party going at the Hilltop stage. We hung outto hear his first 30 but it was hard to stay entertained after Morgan Paged rocked us with such an energetic set. Mord Fustang played a lot of interesting tracks and was fun to listen to, but he came up short in carrying Page’s energy forward. Despite this we still love Mord Fustang and his set still more then qualifies as something you should download and hear! We can’t wait to see him play a solo set as opposed to being squished into a festival lineup.
Shifting gears, chasing more energy we went to the expansive main stage. Like most main stages, Electric Zoos was gigantic and its vertical scale was consuming. Under its top, the main stage housed 55 automated hoisted LCD screens. As a result, each artists visual team was able to make a custom setup that prevented the main stage visuals from getting tired from day 1.
It was 5 o’clock and Sander Van Doorn had begun laying work down on the crowd. We were focused on taking some fan photos in the photo pit until the music distracted us to the point that we couldn’t any longer. Sander Van Doorn was putting on an electro/progressive clinic that was complex and mysterious. Literally, there were track ID’s spread throughout the set that were dynamite and earned Sander his well known reputation. It was our first time seeing him, and hearing Koko on the festival speakers was heaven. He was the first artist of the weekend to utilize the power of the main stage.
Dada Life didn’t let the crowd skip a beat after Sander came off stage. Their champagne and bananas antics were a small tidbit of what went down on the main stage. The duo had massive lettered balloons spelling out “Dada Life” on stage. The sausage-fattened tunes rang throughout the set with small increments of time to rest in between massive drops. While the duo didn’t throw much different material at the crowd, they didn’t seem to mind, as they were losing their shit mindlessly. Dada Life built the energy slowly from the start of their set. They opened with a quick tease of “Kick Out the Epic Motherfucker” and went into their remix of Kaskade’s “Love”. The duo finally smacked the crowd across the face with sausage fat 3 songs into the set, with their remix of “Big Bad Wolf”. When the duo finished their set they still had more entertainment in for the crowd. The jumped down to the photo pit and popped some bottles of champagne into the crowd and took a champagne shower. To spread the love they ran up the middle of the photo pit screaming and engaging the crowd with their crazy eyes and champagne madness. The crowd was blown away. |
| Axwell |
By the time we walked over to Sasha and got into a good spot, it hit us. Festival fatigue. We were so disappointed because Sasha was someone we were really looking forward to all week. We listened on as the artist looped and built energy threw his set and hit the crowd with well-timed drops. It was house heaven! Everyone in the tent was having a phenomenal time and we were jealous that we weren’t on the dance floor raving with everyone. However, it didn’t matter. The visuals in the Sunday school kept us well entertained and the energy in the tent fulfilled. The stage was composed of contorted school buses that projected 3d mapped lasers. If you’ve seen Avicii’s face, it is the same technology and it’s amazing!
After a dose of house we shifted gears to the long time DJ, Benny Bennassi, at the Hilltop tent. The famous Italian DJ was fresh off a gig in Boston, the night prior to E-Zoo, and we wanted share some love with him for visiting our hometown. In addition, Bennassi was the headliner for the Hilltop tent. The infamous Italian kicked off his set with his new Bob Marley remix of “Jammin” but the real excitement would come 27 minutes into the set when Bennassi unleashed his tune “House Music”. During the breakdown the crowd clapped to the beat before being hurled into mayhem surrounding the drop. A fantastic track to be heard live. Other notable tracks in the set was Benny Bennassi’s remix of The Doors “Hello I Love You”.Big moments in Bennassi’s set were plentiful and he utilized different moments in his sets to highlight the many sounds he has worked with over the years. “Glowing in the Dark (chooky remix)” charged hard with its synth surges that were aggressive electro that hit like a dubstep track could while maintaining Bennassi’s notorious electro sound. We loved at the 58 minute mark in his set when the build up to the drop went silent and the LCD & lights to black. When the drop of “perfect storm” by Punk is pink the lights fired back up as every jumped. Benny closed down his headlining set with a remixed classic, “Satisfaction J Rabbit Dubstep Remix,” the crowd went wild.
Day 2 was an excellent time that harnessed a massive crowd’s energy, all while building towards day 3 of the festival. While what was to be expected on day 3 was a mystery, we knew it offered up a jam packed lineup.
Stay Tuned to read about Day 3!
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