Electric Zoo
Electric Zoo, Randall’s Island Park, New York
September 2, 3 & 4 (Labor Day Weekend)
What a way to end the summer with Electric Zoo – New York’s own Electronic Dance Music Festival held at Randall’s Island for the third straight year. Made Events expanded the two-day festival to a three day event this year which meant three days of electronic dance music ranging from house to techno to dub to trance. But it wasn’t just about EDM since there were quite a few surprise acts.
Day One
I kick off day one early, due to some uncertainties but made my way to the venue without any hassle. One of the changes Made Events did was adding more transport options to-and-fro the island. Instead of just having the city buses shuttling people, Made Events added their own shuttle service as well as a ferry service running all throughout the weekend. Big props!
If you have not been to Electric Zoo before, you would not know the dust problems of the previous year. To keep it short, when festival goers start dancing, the air was filled with dust and dirt. And those can get into places you don’t want them to. You get the picture right?
Made Events addressed this issue by greening up the grounds as well as placing flooring on each tent. They also move back the main stage – creating more space and allowing festival goers to dance on the pavement rather than on the grass. More room to roam and less dust flying all over the place. Major props!
The Main Stage sure looks bigger this year and was pushed back further to allow more space for people to dance around. And they got three humongous tents representing Sunday School, Hilltop Arena and Redbull Riverside. But I am not sure what Made Events was thinking when they placed all the three tents parallel to each other and so close that you can easily hear the beats from each tent. And what happens to the School Bus?
So to begin my three day EDM journey, I stopped by Sunday School Tent or ‘Carl Cox & Friends Take Over Sunday School‘ and caught Nicole Moudaber, the only female DJ I saw during the three day event. Her set was upbeat composed mainly of House and Techno tunes. And I also had a chance to meet her. Next up was BT on the Main Stage. The Godfather of EDM performed with his ‘Laptop Symphony‘ which included a live performance by JES, a drummer and BT himself playing the keyboard while mixing. His set was filled with electro beats and mashups dropping tunes such as "I’m Feelin It In The Air" (a tune he collaborated with Morgan Page, Ned Shepard and Sultan with vocals by Angela McCluskey) and a catchy new tune which I am guessing is entitled “"Catch Me If You Can". BT sang along to "These Silent Hearts", "The Emergency" and "Love Comes Again", a tune he collaborated with Tiësto. JES performed "Awaken" and "Made Of Love", which was the finale to an amazing set.
Next on my schedule were Gaz and Markus so I headed to Hilltop Arena and got a chance to listen to Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano. The Dutch duo pretty much rocked Hilltop with a good mix of deep and funky house. Gareth Emery was up next and the tent suddenly got packed. Mr. Garuda opened with "Vision" by Ashley Wallbridge and continued on with a great mix of trance, house, dubstep and progressive tunes as well as tunes from his ‘Northern Lights‘ album. I was caught with surprise when Gaz dropped Ben Gold’s Big Sky Remix. Never thought I would hear this tune live. Gareth Emery closed out his set with a dub tune – the Skrillex’s remix of "Promises" by Nero. Oh and the CDJ didn’t fail this time.
If Gaz brought out Garuda, Markus Schulz brought out Coldharbour. There was a little glitch at the beginning of Markus’ set but that did not stop the crowd from dancing the entire time with tunes from his Coldhardbour, Dakota pseudo and a good mix of old and new tunes. Markus opened with "Katowice" and dropped "Digital Madness", "507", "Sleepwalkers", "Rotunda" and "Saints" as well as various mashups ("Lethal Traversing", "Superstar Camshaft" and "Avion Skank") and Big Room Reconstructions ("Caress 2 Impress", "The New World"). He ended his set with "Outsider" by Beat Service.
Got a chance to catch a breather before heading back to the Main Stage to see Moby. Now, Moby surprised me last year because I never expected that he could spin tunes so well. And he surely surprised me again this year with a set filled with House and Electro beats such as Fukkk Offf’s "Rave Is King", Bassjackers’ "Mush Mush", Bonsai Kat’s "Egotripping" and R3hab’s "Prutataaa". And based on the crowd reaction, he had a sick set.
And back to Sunday School for Carl Cox. The Sunday School tent was the smallest of all the three tents and I felt like Mr. Cox should be in one of the bigger tents, if not, the Main Stage. But in any event, he still packed Sunday School with his massive bass line, acid house beats and hard style techno dropping tunes such as Rob Threezy’s "Chicago On Acid", Joe Brunning’s "Let Me See You Work" and Josh Wink’s "Higher State Of Consciousness". This is only the second time I have seen Carl Cox live and he surely made me a follower.
Day one in the books. Two more days to go…
Day Two
The second day was spend mostly at the Hilltop Arena Tent with Zack Roth, Mat Zo, Sean Tyas, Simon Patterson, Andy Moor, ATB and Ferry Corsten. I did manage to make my way to the Main Stage to catch Sander van Doorn and Above & Beyond.
Being the DJ when the doors just open must be tough since you are playing in a very sparse crowd especially in a massive tent. But the good thing about it is that you can experiment. That’s what Zack Roth did during his set mixing tunes like "Off The System" by Bambook, "Rosetta" by Rodskeez, "Monotony" by Nikko Z & Chris Mozio and "Undiscovered" by Lemontrip. What a set to start day two.
Next up was Mat Zo. I had high expectations from the 21-year old DJ from England because of his stunning productions. I might have set it too high but Mat Zo still had a good set dishing out tunes such as "Vengeance Vengeance" by Leon Bolier, "Mokba" by Cirez D and "Ask The Cat" by Heatbeat while mixing in his own tunes such as "Superman", "Frequency Flyer" and closing with his mashup of "Satellite Dynamics".
Next on my lineup list was the back-to-back set of Sean Tyas and Simon Patterson. I first heard them together at another music festival and was blown away. I think it was the best non-duo set I have ever heard. And I am glad I had a chance to see Tyas and Patterson together once more. They brought massive beats and melodies and seamless transition that would made you think that they do this regularly. Some of the tunes they dropped where "Taxi", Ummet’s "Reboot", Depeche Mode’s "Personal Jesus" and the Tyas Remix of the classic "Suburban Train" by Tiësto. And not to mention "For The Most Part", a collaboration they did in 2009.
I made my way to the Main Stage to catch Sander van Doorn’s set. SvD opened with "Kendo" and the crowd was instantly hooked to his set of trance, electro, and house music. He dropped tunes by Bassjackers ("Mush Mush"), Nero ("Guilt"), Tiësto ("Work Hard, Play Hard"), Alesso & Sebastian Ingrosso ("Calling"), Dada Life ("White Noise, Red Meat") and Marcus Schössow ("Acid, Festival, Champagne, B*tches") as well as his tunes – "Reach Out", "Koko", "Drink To Get Drunk" and "Renegade".
Had to run back to Hilltop to catch Andy Moor. His set featured vocal and uplifting trance. Mr. Moor opened with Protoculture’s remix of "Black Is The New Yellow" and proceeded with tunes such as "Acting Crazy" by TyDi, "The Theme" by Cosmic Gate and "Fight The Fire", his tune with Sue McLaren. It was getting too crowded at Hilltop by the end of his set due to the next act (Skrillex) but I am pretty sure Moor made them know that he can throw it down hard. It truly was Less Talking, Moor Music.
Back to the Main Stage for Above & Beyond, the trance superstar was off to a great start dropping tunes from their ‘Group Therapy‘ album such as "Prelude", "Sun & Moon", "You Got To Go" and "Thing Called Love" as well as some classic tunes such as "Home", "Buzz" and "On A Good Day". Sadly though, their set got predictable half-way through.
I took a break after their set, grabbed some grubs before catching Andre Tanneberger, or better known as ATB. ATB had a sub-par performance at Electric Zoo last year. But that totally changed this year mixing his classic hits like "Ecstasy" and "9PM" with tracks from his ‘Distant Earth‘ album. ATB got the crowd going with his showmanship urging the crowd to bring the noise level up and kept the crowd moving throughout his set.
And finally, the last DJ for the second day is Ferry Corsten, one of the famous Dutch DJs in the world. Festival goers got attracted to his up-tempo, big room trance and house sound. And he surely did not disappoint the crowd with a great selection of tunes such as "Reboot", "Madagascar" and "Down Under" while interjecting his own tunes such as "Feel It", "Check It Out", "Punk", "Take Me" and "Beautiful". He got the crowd singing when he drop the bootleg version of "Scientist" and surprised everyone dropping Bart Claessen & Tom Fall’s bootleg of Massive Attack’s "Teardrop". He closed out his set with the massive hit, "Made Of Love", a tune that would forever be embedded in my brain. I just wonder why the second day headliner, Guetta, did not close out this day?
Day two is finally over, will I have enough to last day three?
Day Three
With my sore feet and raspy voice, I headed to Randall’s Island for the final day to the festival. This time – it will be moslty trance.
The day started at the Redbull Riverside tent with Jaytech dropping melodic tunes to kick start the day. The Anjunabeats artist dropped a good mix of tunes such as Daquiri’s "Lily" and Boom Jinx & Andrew Bayer’s "By All Means" coupled with his own tunes such as "Djembe" and "Groove Nova" and a remix of Eternal Sequence. Next up were Finnish duo Super8 & Tab, part of the Anjunabeats family. The duo opened up with their remix of "Days" and proceeded with a good mixture of trance and progressive tunes. They surely surprised me when they dropped two classic tunes – Above & Beyond’s "Can’t Sleep" and Paul van Dyk’s "Nothing But You". Overall, they surely got the crowd pumped and ready for some more sets.
There’s no party without Arty and it surely was. The 21-year old blew up Redbull Riverside Tent with his set of mashups, remixes and collab tunes, not to mention the amazing the L.E.D. display that lit up the tent. The crowd was so intense that security had to start dousing cold water to battle the summer heat inside the tent. He opened with the Myon & Shane 54 mashup of "She Gave Strangers Happiness" and played tunes such as the Eric Prydz remix of "Personal Jesus", Dash Berlin remix of "Not Giving Up On Love", First State Bashup of "Koko Prutataaa" and his remix of "New York New York". Arty dropped his tunes such as "Kate", "Around The World" and "Rebound", a tune he collaborated with Mat Zo. He also dropped mashups such as "C’Mon Me And You", and "Catch The Flashback". He closed with a classic tune, Tiësto’s "Adagio For Strings". Arty surely set the standard for the rest of the festival.
Needing a break, I headed up to the Main Stage to catch Calvin Harris. Started a bit slow but he picked up the tempo with electro-house tunes that got the crowd fist-pumping through "Awooga", "Flashback", "Miami 2 Ibiza", "I’m Not Alone", "You’ve Got The Love" and "Bounce". I think Calvin Harris got bitten by the classic bug as well as he dropped Darude’s "Sandstorm" during the middle of his set. The king of electro-pop closed out his set with "Feel So Close".
I did not know who EDX was before today and it was just by chance that I happenned to check his set out. EDX had a good mixture of trance, progressive and house tunes. I only caught the last half of his set where he dropped tunes such as Kaskade’s mashup of "Angel On My Shoulder Reaver 76", Nicky Romero’s remix of "Flash" and the Avicii Remix of "Drowning". He got the tent shaking when he dropped the Hardwell’s mashup of "Prutataaa At Night".
Arty set the bar for the Redbull Riverside Tent, Michael Woods upped that bar with his progressive and tech-house set. He got the crowd singing when he dropped "Otherside vs. Metrum" and Kaskade’s mashup of "Move For Me vs. First Aid". He got the crowd jumping and fist-pumping through "Zero 76", his remix of "Bounce", "I Wish" and "Bullet". He ended his banging set with "Black Strip".
They are back together again – Gabriel & Dresden, the next DJ up on the Redbull Riverside Tent. The duo open with "Ascending", the first track on their album ‘Mixed For Feet Vol. 1" and continued with their mashups of "Beautiful Good Dream", "Tracking Civilization Down" and "Dust In The Control Room". They surely got the crowd singing with "As The Rush Comes". I did not stay the entire set though as me and my friends want to take a break before making our way to the main stage for the grand act of them all.
We made our way to the main stage during Afrojack’s set. This Dutch DJ dropped some pretty sick tunes such as Silvio Ecomo & Chuckie’s "Moombah" with Daft Punk’s "Technologic" and "Aerodynamic" and Alesso & Sebastian Ingrosso’s "Calling". He dropped a new track before closing out with R3hab’s remix of "Give Me Everything", a mashup of "Replica" and "Rolling In The Deep" and Tiësto’s "Maximal Crazy".
What a way to close out a music festival with the number one DJ in the world, Armin van Buuren. The headliner of the third day and I would say the best I have heard Armin this year. He totally blew me away with his set composed addictive trance tunes. He opened with "Mansion" and proceeded in dropping tunes such as "Rotunda", "Vengeance Vengeance", "The Blue Theme", "Viking" and "Terrace 4 A.M." that got the crowd dancing throughout the night. He got the crowd singing with "Fallen Angel", "Not Over Yet" and "These Silent Hearts". The highlight of his set was when the pyrotechnics and confetti rain down on the crowd when he dropped Shogun’s "Skyfire".
He dropped his mashup of "Beautiful Ashes" before closing his amazing set with another mashup – "In And Out Of Love vs. Raw Deal". And with the crowd, including I, chanting "One more song". Armin came out and dropped "This Light Between Us". I was just mesmerized by his set and ended up with wobbly legs and a coarse voice but it was worth it. And let me say this: This is How You Close Out A Festival!
Another Electric Zoo ends, another great festival in the books. Wish they would do something about the Water Stations since the lines can get pretty long. But at least I did not have to worry about the dust and dirt that much this time around. Best sets go out to Armin van Buuren, Arty, Ferry Corsten, Andy Moor, EDX, BT, Carl Cox, Moby and Michael Woods.
Reviewed by: Jon Jon
Event courtesy: Made Events + Plexi PR
Photo Gallery
Check out the entire photo gallery from Electric Zoo – courtesy Jon Jon, Bennett Sell-Kline, Scott Kowalchyk and Jordan Loyd.
