This year’s Electric Zoo Festival took over Randall’s Island for the requisite three days. You never know quite what to expect with each year’s passing zoo, and even with each annual chapter, surprises spring up in the darndest of places.
Upon arriving each and every day, the crowd appeared a phalanx of ravers. Lord have mercy there were so many more people - or animals - this year than ever before. And festivals of this size are funny in New York, when compared to the West Coast. People tend to dress as ravers with big city style. Not quite as animalistic as the Daisy crazies.
Either way, just as each year presents a different cast of animals, each day of each annual chapter encapsulates its own offering of experiences. This year, Friday’s Electric Zoo crown belonged to Above and Beyond, who rocked trance in all of the right ways. Extracting the cheese and tact out of this genre, these guys kept their set current, with an occasional throwback, quickly reminding ravers of the legend that these guys have spent so long establishing. On Friday night, their set made staying until the end of Electric Zoo worth it.
Saturday was another story. Obviously. This meat-in-the-sandwich-rave-day was all about the Sunday School Grove. Usually it’s the tent, but now who wouldn’t take a Grove (or a groove) over a tent? Sasha, you will always have a home in NYC, whether it’s on a boat, in a basement, in a warehouse, or in this electric Grove. Sasha’s Saturday evening set hit all of the right chords, shaking out the trance form the night before and bringing things back to a deep house reality. Thanks Sasha, and congratulations for winning Saturday’s festival crown!
Another day, another rave. Sunday presented one final chance to save the last dance at Electric Zoo. Tiesto took the mainstage and breaths were held in waiting. Will he be his old self? Or will he be his current reincarnation? Ladies and gentlemen, what ensued was a euphonious combination of both worlds: old and new Tiesto joined forces for this set, as he played newer materials with those time-Tiesto-tested transitions in between songs. Finally, he brought us back to that happy and respected sacred listening place. Exhale.
Then over to Marco Carolo, where we finished things off on his techno turf. Because isn’t that what everyone used to call it anyway: techno? Either way, this was the unquestionable stage to close out the Zoo festivities. Carolo rocked the decks and took our breaths up and down techno town.
This was not our first, nor will it be our last, Electric Zoo Festival experience.
