the drop

Who knew-la vista?

Identity Festival is winding down and I was lucky enough to snag a $20 ticket a while ago when Skullcandy had their $20 for 20 hours deal. With artists like Le Castle Vania, Booka Shade, Datsik, Afrojack, Nero, Kaskade, and Pretty Lights, I think I can go out on a limb and say I got some bang for my buck.

The production company, Skullcandy, has pulled off the first-ever touring strictly electronic music festival in the United States. ID Fest was held in over 20 cities, including Charlotte, Atlanta, Tampa, Dallas, Alberquerque, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. A cool detail that I noticed when browsing the website and also the decor for the mainstage was their creation of unique logos for each city. They each personified a symbol representing the city, like an apple for New York, a cowboy hat for Dallas, a cactus for Alberquerque, the Golden Gate Bridge for SF, and an ocean wave for SD.

The San Diego venue (actually Chula Vista) was Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, and made for a nice setting with the great sound and ample seating. The mainstage provided enough room to move around and sit down when you wanted to, a nice change from most raves that consist of sweating-your-ass-off and standing-at-all-times, which is standard of many multi-stage festivals.

I felt that Skullcandy put on a more high-end and very organized festival compared to a lot of EDM raves I’ve been to. Sponsored by Rockstar and Dim Mak Records, the secondary stage featured a Rockstar energy drink “garden,” complete with water misters and bar tables to socialize and get cracked out on free Rockstars. There were several art and clothing booths where vendors were giving out free swag.

Now lets get to the music. Booka Shade was a highlight of the daytime, playing live drums and keyboards and doing their thang. Body Language and Donut were their jammers that got the crowd going.

Despite Afrojack being about 20 minutes late (Steve Aoki filled in until he got there), he was a crowd-pleaser as always, playing classics and mainstream hits such as “Take Over Control” and (though not my favorite) his recently VMA-winning collaboration with Chris Brown & Pitbull, “Give Me Everything.”

But OH. MY. GOD. The clear winner of the night who took the fucking cake was Pretty Lights. What a show. He opened with his epic new song I Know The Truth along with a light show that blew my mind song after song after song.

Other memorable touches included Finally Moving transitioning into Finally Moving Remix, and his remix of Pink Floyd’s Time, which was fucking epic.

Nero & Kaskade were definitely enjoyable, but didn’t top PL. Anyway, you had to be there, and if you saw him at any other ID Fest, you know what I’m talking about. Definitely would rank him in my top 5 live performances to date.

Hope everyone had a fun and epic 3 day weekend. Until the next massive.