The Neon Garden this year was different. First, it wasn’t a tent. But it also wasn’t an open-air downtown district type building, like with the version we saw at the Neon Garden in 2018. This year it was a megastructure. A pretty big one too. I’m still not even sure how many people could fit into it, but Patrick Topping mentioned there being 20,000 people at his set, and that was the very last set of the very last day, and I was there. It didn’t feel like it was that filled up, but does it ever?
I still don’t know how many people were in there during the peak of each night. Which I can tell you, felt way more crowded than when I saw Patrick topping. Although, again, that was still 20,000 people. It just doesn’t feel that way when you’re in the middle of it. When you’re in the middle of it you’re just one small part. Sort of like an ant just following his own path, and still realizing it’s all a part of the overall goal of the group. That’s how small it really makes you feel once you look back at it.
That first night for us started with Michael Bibi, and right off the bat he played the house-iest set we heard all weekend in the Garden, and he had everybody bumping in rhythm right from the get-go. Even ending with a song by the late great Paul Johnson that still sounded so fresh and clean after all these years.
Next came Loco Dice and true to form, he made things fuzzy for the rest of the weekend. It’s very hard to explain the impact Loco Dice has on a dancer because if I played a set on soundcloud or I showed you something on Youtube it would never duplicate how it feels to be right there on the dancefloor surrounded by massive speakers as the bass drops for the first time. It just hits different. And after that you’re different too.
I’ve often argued that what makes Loco Dice so unique is his ability to use the feedback from his bassline to create a second bassline to counter that. Most times you won’t even know which bassline to follow because he has found a way to form a completely different set by just changing the frequency of his sound.
What’s more is that most people just don’t realize that sound waves are real. Even if you can’t see them, they are floating through the air, and when they reach you, they enter and flow through you, changing both your physical and spiritual state as well. Loco Dice is as clear an example of that as any DJ I’ve ever experienced in person. After you’re done hearing him you can feel the aches and creaks in your body. His music changed you.
What stood out about Loco Dice that first night was not just what he played, but also what he wore, which I never say for a DJ, but this time, it was because it brought up a memory, I always hold so dear. Night one of EDC 2021 was not my first time seeing Loco Dice. Or my second. Or possibly even my third. The first time I remember seeing Loco Dice was in Detroit at the Leland City Club. It was an afterparty for Movement Music festival and it included Loco Dice doing a b2b with Stacey Pullen followed by the Martinez Brothers doing a b2b with Seth Troxler. My date and I arrived there around midnight, and we left sometime around 8 am in a complete and utter daze.
For eight hours I remember little more than loving every single fucking minute of it, and it’s still to this day one of the best nights I ever had on the dancefloor. If you ask me what songs were played, I probably won’t remember. I probably wouldn’t recognize anybody else there either, outside of my love and I, but I can remember one other thing I know I will never forget.
I remember Loco Dice wearing a fuzzy red kangol hat. Smooth and subtle. Like it was still 1992. Like time had stood still and walking into a function in Detroit to a DJ bumping house music in his kangol hat still happened everyday for us techno kids just brave enough to see it. I’ll never forget that red kangol hat, and how it looked in my mind. Which is why I was so amazed, when I finally made it to the center of the dancefloor, to see Loco Dice at EDC 2021 rocking that same Kangol hat. Red and Fluffy, and impossible to ignore. I could feel the universe telling me, ‘Welcome back to the party.’
After Loco came the Martinez Brothers, and for two more hours the garden just bumped. Loud and heavy and full of life. No tent this time. No plants. Or Flowers. Even at a daisy carnival. But the sounds went long and deep into the night. And so did we. By the end of that first night, we spent somewhere around seven hours in the Neon Garden, only taking small breaks to get water or maybe even use the restroom. It was clear from that first day, we all were there for a reason, and for us, that reason was House and Techno. Night two would prove that to us again, once and for all.
If night one was about a return to House Music, then night two was about techno, and how much it really had taken over the garden. When we first went to the Neon Garden it was a real mix of House and Techno, and it still very much is, but the difference now is that when Techno takes over it spreads, and spreads and I don’t think the spreading stops. Night two for us started with Enrico Sangiuliano, perhaps the Dj I wanted to see most after the quarantine. The sounds of the Italian Techno Titan sounded so clean and heavy in the heart of the neon garden, and he made me feel like we had finally returned to the life of techno we loved so much. He just kept building and building and building, and before we knew it, it was time for Charlotte de Witte.
Charlotte is known all around the world as the next generation of Techno, and to me she showed it even more with her headlining set at the Neon Garden. She powered through with more acid techno than I had heard her play before, and she wiped away any memory of anybody who played before her. Enrico built a powerful techno fortress and she armed it with the acid power I love so much. Nothing melts my heart faster than acid techno. Charlotte gave me that on a sound system that again, made you feel it in your body as well as your soul. That still didn’t prepare me for what came next with Reinier Zonneveld, who was picked to play the final set of Night two at EDC.
What made Reinier’s set, perhaps the best of the entire weekend, so good was that it was unique, and spontaneous and filled with emotion. You could feel him pushing the dancers to keep going, and you could see his smile up on stage as he dropped and then pulled every single beat he had in his arsenal of techno sounds. For him it was an attempt to make a connection with us, and by the final song you could feel how connected we all were for just that one moment.
He played harder and harder, even going so far as to almost play some European Hardcore towards the end of his set, finally pulling us all out to play the classic Underworld song Born Slippy as the lights reflected off his jacket. I stood in stunned silence wearing my black kitty onesie I bought specifically for this night. Even after the music stopped you could still feel the power of the night that Techno brought to us for Night two in the Neon Garden. We were exhausted and happy, with just barely enough energy to fall asleep and get ready for one last night at EDCLV deep within the Neon Garden. I even heard the music in my sleep that morning.
The third night of any festival is unique because in most cases it revolves around most of the people attending just trying to survive. Even the toughest of the toughest get a little worn down after three days and three nights of partying, and EDC and Las Vegas do nothing to help make that fact easier. Just getting to the festival that last night is an amazing feet all by itself, leaving everybody in attendance with a euphoric sense of joy and a full commitment to enjoying every single second like its our last, because after this night it would be for us and EDC, at least for one more year.
Night three at the Neon Garden was about one set and only one set. The B3B. Dubfire b2b Nicole Moudaber b2b Paco Osuna. An epic and powerful combination of sounds that we were dying to see again ever since we got a taste of it at Escape, in Southern California before the world shut down and things changed forever. That weekend was devoted to wandering and enjoying the festival, so we didn’t see the entire performance by the three the first time, but for this one we knew we wouldn’t miss a second. First, though, we had the chance to enjoy the powerful sounds of Nina Kraviz.
With Nina you never know what you’re gonna get, and tonight she chose powerful and heavy techno that sent me spinning and rolling around in the grass outside the garden. Again, the physical change Techno causes is impossible to ignore. Nina subtly and confidently made sure her two hours would be just as memorable and just as heavy as any other DJ who played that weekend. Nobody in the crowd could deny it. And then the b3b started.
As the music started up, and we walked quickly into the thick faceless crowd that stood ready to dance at every chance they gave us, you could already feel the power building. From their first song, it was more like they were building a skyscraper deep within the city. Every song a new level, and addition to the power they started on the ground floor. Each working with great intent and such focus that there was never any way of knowing who was playing what.
Dubfire stood at the end, headphones on, absolutely obsessed with each sound being made. Moudaber, stood in the center, her hair, and her sunglasses, and that look she gives that lets you know she’s just as in it as you are. And Paco just zoning out to the sounds he seems to forget are his. His subtle control over such power combined with Moudaber’s confidence and Dubfire’s patience created something I know I will never witness again.
The lights flashed above and behind them and the fog oozed out into the crowd as we all simply lost our minds in a dance and celebration of how far Techno has come. What was two hours felt only like minutes of absolute joy and bliss over the beats and sounds we loved so much. At this moment the Neon Garden was the loudest stage on the Speedway grounds and there’s nothing you can say or do to ever make me feel otherwise. The B3B was the loudest most powerful moment Techno has ever had at EDC, and we were all there together to have it. When their two hours were up and we all celebrated and hugged and wept with joy, we slowly came to realize what had slowly crept up on us. We had reached the end of EDC, and our return to the Garden.
Patrick Topping played the closing set, and we danced one more time in merriment and absolute bliss to the sounds of his heavy, jacking, jumping house music. And sometimes some techno, but always Patrick Topping. He plays in a way, and with a style, and with such enthusiasm that you will always know who’s playing when he’s playing. I couldn’t have asked for a better DJ to end the weekend and this night for us. He gave us one more chance to enjoy our garden. A garden we thought we’d never see again.
Not every moment we spent at EDC was at the Neon Garden, but then again, I don’t want to talk about those other stages right now. I didn’t seek them out with wonder and commitment like I did with the Garden. I enjoyed them all, and I loved them all, and I’m so glad and thankful for the moments I had out there over that one weekend in October. At the Speedway I felt a renewed commitment to the idea EDC is trying so hard to keep alive. Enjoy the moment, the experience, and most of all those you are there with.
Of the three EDC’s I went to this one was far and away the one filled with the most love. We who went, knew we wanted to be there, and because of that we let go of all the expectations we once had before. We weren’t as careless, or naïve to the world, and still, at the same time, we weren’t as jaded or arrogant in the comfort of this life we once had.
We were starting over, but then again, so was everybody else. So was EDC. Getting back to this one wasn’t just about getting back to the Speedway or even getting back to the Neon Garden. Getting back to this one was about getting back to each other, and reminding one another, that the journey we take to get to this moment is just as important as the moment itself. There will be another EDC. But there will never be another one just like this. And that’s all any of us can ask for ever again. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Pictures by S. Gallegos
Words by A. Gallegos
Ourdancefloor.net 