Randall’s Island in New York City found itself shaken by the heavy hitting bass featured on Day One of Electric Zoo. EDM animals came from all over the United States to party at New York’s premiere music festival for the Labor Day weekend.
Electric Zoo tapped many different sub-genres of the vast EDM world, but Friday found itself the focus of dubstep, hardstyle and enough bass to make your chest vibrate.
And, if the theme is bass, who better to headline than the man with bass in his very name- Bassnectar. In addition to the California-born producer, Friday featured the considerable talents of bass producers like Carnage, Datsik, Zomboy, Flux Pavilion, Cookie Monsta, Funtcase and Spor.
While Friday had the least amount of people for the entire weekend, it was nonetheless a packed venue.
Stages opened at 3:00 on Friday afternoon and people flocked in. At Electric Zoo‘s five stages people danced, shuffled, bounced, gloved, hula-hooped and headbanged. Extravagant costumes were everywhere. People wore kandi of all colors and designs. Day One of Electric Zoo had officially begun.
Electric Zoo made a distinct effort to have different types of sounds to appeal to different people.
From Illenium‘s electronica to Anna Lunoe‘s haunting vocals to the big room house sounds of Ummet Ozcan, there was something for everyone. And while there were many different genres, by the time the sunset, everyone was ready. By 7:00 that night everything had gone bass. Flux Pavilion was on Main Stage and Zomboy was one stage away.
At 8:00 Carnage moved onto Main Stage and Datsik took over Hilltop. Everyone knew who was coming on at 9:00. Everyone knew how bass-y the night would get. The crowd was ready. By this time, everyone’s bass love was keyed to a fever pitch, so when Carnage introduced Bassnectar as “the legend”, fans lost their minds.
I’ve been to a fair number of festivals myself, but I have never seen a bass-heavy lineup before.
Deep bass favorites were featured in multiple sets including DJ Snake‘s “Propaganda”, Flosstradamus‘ “Prison Riot” and Zomboy‘s “Terror Squad”.
I would love to talk about how hard Datsik went, how deep the bass was during Zomboy‘s set and how much Carnage pumped up the crowd. I would. But Bassnectar was the star of the show on Friday, and he certainly starred.
The crowd completely loved Bassnectar, they weren’t dancing so much as headbanging in place.
Bassnectar played many of his own songs including “Mind Tricks”, “Speakerbox” and “You & Me”. One particularly exuberant young man next to me almost knocked his front teeth out on a barrier because he was headbanging so hard. Yikes.
But all in all, I can confidently say that people loved Friday. Bassnectar and the featured bass-fam kicked off Electric Zoo in a memorable way and set the stage for the upcoming weekend. Day One of Electric Zoo was finished. But the weekend wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
