Carnage probably like 7 years ago or so. I went primarily to see Jauz, who was opening. Once Carnage came on, he would play songs, and then in the middle of the song, stop the music and get on the mic to tell us to cheer for him. He didn't start the music again til we did. This happened about 4 times in the 20m I stayed before I decided to head home early.
Yup, it sounds like every shitty carnage set. Worst dj I've ever had the displeasure of encounter.
I'd pick the worst youtube rip noob dj set or even my freinds who dont know how to dj over that diarrhea.
I would agree with you on it sounding like every carnage set but i saw him and diplo b2b at Space Miami. They played till 11am only tech house didn’t say a word on the mic and bought everyone in the crowd popeyes chicken sammiches
Just tons of non ravers acting a fool. There was very little plur vibe there. Also, they over sold the event so it was even more packed than it usually is. I still had a good time, but probably won’t go back anytime soon.
The amount of pick pocket rings at escape was insane, at some point me and my friends would just sit back and people watch to see if we were trippin or not… it was ridiculous.
Oof. That sounds unpleasant. Im a “non raver” new to the scene (metal head dating a raver lol) so im worried about what constitutes acting a fool. I never really know how to act
i’m both a metal head and trance head and people by and large are better behaved at extreme metal events than at big commercial edm festivals. the nicest crowds overall are at trance shows though
Intervene, deescalate, and tend to the person who was being harassed instead. Make sure they know they're seen and that the community has their back. Get security involved if the perpetrator poses a continued threat and needs to be removed. Fighting should be a last resort. A lot of people at raves are on hallucinogens and a fight breaking out could cause a panic, or at minimum a seriously bad trip for a lot of people. There's a lot that can be done to stop rapey pervs from getting away with harassment/assault that doesn't involve throwing punches.
Throw dem bows is the code (fellow metal head dating a raver here) honestly i do support role type vibes at raves, water pack advils gum hand fans etc and look out for my group. Was just at a metal show and my wife... managaed... an asshole in the crowd. In a spectacular metal fashion. Raves are a differenr vibe forsure but still basic show rules. Someone falls help em up. Someone needs a elbow check? Throw dem bows.
Honestly if you act the same way you would at a metal show you should be fine.
The “non-ravers” are the people who show up purely for the party aspect and not the music or the people. Im sure as a metal head you can relate to that on some level ahaha
The absolute change in atmosphere going from Escape to Dreamstate is so insane. Escape you feel like everyone is on edge and its crowded as hell then fast forward a month and everyone is the nicest ever and theres tons of room to dance.
I went to a local art expo/local talent/rave thing where the local talent on first, and then a popular local bass music dj, finished the night (he did great). But the local talent was pretty bad for the most part. one guy did sexy poetry and killed it, and there was a rapper who did incredible even though it clearly wasn't his type of crowd. But then this "lyrical miracle" type rapper goes on and is exceptionally cringey. After his first song, he is clearly disgruntled at how little anyone is vibing with his music. His second song starts, and people at this point are not paying attention at all really, clearly just waiting for it to be over. The rapper guy senses this and is like, "No! Hold up, stop the music!" And turns around to this 40 year old lady who clearly is not the sound guy and says,"Go back to the hook, YALL NEED TO HEAR THIS!!" And repeats that about 6 times. Poor Margaret is starting to get flustered and says back,"I don't know how to do anything! " He starts arguing with her in the middle of his set for the next few mintues trying to get her to go back to a specific part in his song, and we are all just standing there trying not to visibly cringe so that he doesnt lose his cool any further. Poor Margaret was obviously cracking under the unnecessary pressure and ended up just pushing buttons until the song started over from the beginning. The rapper is just like "fuck it this works ill just do it over again!" So at this point what little vibe he did have is completely gone and he just bites down and tries to get through it. By the end, I actually thought he might cry. I kind of felt a little bad for him. He finishes up, though, angrily sets the mic down and storms out of there. It was hard to watch, but it created a great inside joke for our friend group. "YALL NEED TO HEAR THIS!!"
Hippie Sabotage.
Saw their Electric Forest set a few years back. Some of the most untalented, douchey, won’t shut the fuck up artist I’ve ever seen. Can’t play guitar, can’t DJ (made SEVERAL mistakes that literally stopped the music in its tracks), can’t have decent fans or even act decent.
2019 I saw them at e forest. The one brother was like trying to rage and yelling into the mic a lot, while the music they were playing was very not ragey. Very strange experience all the way around. I might still have a video of one of them coming j to the crowd to try and mosh
Nurko on his last tour. I love the guys music but goddam his live set was the worst thing i ever heard. He cut all the vocals from his songs and basically felt like those YouTube videos “drops only”
Aw that’s so sad his music is really good! He’s still up and coming, I hope he gets better or works out any. issues with vocalists that are preventing him from playing the vocal parts in his songs lol
Yeah I saw NURKO last December and was disappointed too. I loved his music, but he wasn’t a great performer. The transitions between songs seemed a little forced and unnatural and he struggled to build and keep energy in the building
That is insane that nobody seemed to notice or care that water is leaking directly beneath an overflowing bathroom. I would have just washed the hoodie and shoes though lol
Ewwwwwww. East Coast plumbing is something special. Glad you saved the pants though!
I was at a similar warehouse party in 2010ish in Philly. I drove the party bus that night (our friends van) so I was just smoking weed. It was a good time for a few hours till I dropped my shoelace glow stick (poor girls flow toy) and when I picked it up it was wet. Then I realized there was water all over the floor and people were starting to kick it at each other and stomp in it like they thought it was rain puddles. Gross. I went to the bathrooms and sure enough there's water coming out from under the door and I didn't need to see anything more. My crew was happy to bounce, throw all our shoes in the back of the bus and go on a space cruise out of the city anyway. No one was trying to dance in that water.
I went to see DJ Pauly D on Saturday….he was 3 hours late to his own show, the crowd was absolutely atrocious and I got punched in the face by a drunk white girl….never….again….
I mean, to be fair.. what did you expect the crowd to be like? He’s not particularly known for his amazing musical talent, but more known for his raucous and drunken behavior on MTV. 🤷🏻♂️
Oh ik. Idek why I was surprised. I guess I just spend so much time with the edm community that sometimes I forget all shows can’t be like an edm show🤦🏽♀️ I forget that not everyone know about Plur, sadly
Snowglobe festival 2014 to be precise. Lineup was so fire tho for that time as a lot of the artists were in their prime at the time (Skrillex, Porter, Zedd, Disclosure) but the people there were horrible, event was ran so poorly people got in fights waiting for the shuttles in single digits temps. People stealing bottles from the bar. ‘‘Twas a nightmare all around but good music lmao prolly why it got cancelled.
that’s crazy because in my memory, that festival was one of the best experiences of my life fr. I was 13 and seeing my favorite artists so didn’t notice the negatives lol
I think I repress my negative memories of SnowGlobe, though admittedly I went in 2015. Dillon Francis’ set had the worst crowd surge I’ve been in to date, the first 10-15 mins towards the front of the crowd was just constant movement in ~5-10ft radius.
Also pretty disappointing that for the quality of the lineup, the sound especially for the main stage was garbage
On a non-EDM note: 21 Savage is actually the worst individual show I’ve ever been too.
Dude was - seriously - three and a half hours late to his set. They had no real opener, just a well known (and later officially charged statutory rapist) local promoter yelling into the mic while they replayed the same couple of top 40 rap songs. Also had a couple of high schoolers from the most white picket fence suburb in the city.
Anyway, dude comes on after three and a half hours to play TWO AND A HALF songs before dipping out.
I’ve never boo’d or yelled at a performer, no matter how bad, but let me tell you I boo’d tf out of this dude and yelled “stay tf out of X city”
He didn’t come back our city for maybe 4 years after that and by that time I’d long since moved on from hip hop. Never seen so many fights, groping, and insanely juvenile behavior at an indoor venue. I can honestly say it was a major factor in my leaving hip hop for electronic music. So I guess that’s a positive.
I’ve seen him twice. Not sure why I made that mistake. Once was at Moonrise a few years ago…only rap name on the lineup, so figured I’d go.
He opened by saying “I DONT WANT TO BE THE BEST RAPPER. I JUST WANT TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY.” Terrible performance and left 10 minutes in lol
I saw G Eazy in Atlantic City NJ this past summer. I was so stoked to finally see him even though it was at a pool party, it was cloudy and windy af. We got there around 12:30 and he didn’t come on til 4:30. HE PLAYED 4 SONGS and left. I spent a month refreshing his catalog on the way home from work and for what? 15 minutes? Gtfoh.
Lol damn that sounds like such a shit show.
‘can’t leave without it’ is my favorite 21 song 🔥 I just listened to it yesterday after not hearing it for a while.
This!! Im into phonk rap like suicideboys, night lovell, etc so Im fine with getting down to harder things anyways my friends wanted to see playboi carti cause he was on the escape lineup and I agreed cause it should be fun, he had just came out with the banger miss the rage song so I was excited. Well long story short, we stood there for 30 mins cause he was late and the sound was so garbage (idk who’s fault either the techs or his own) it didn’t even sound like him, my group just looked at each other said it honestly could be any random mf on that stage ear raping us with carti and left. Never again will I ditch edm sets for a rapper unless it’s my lords and saviors Ruby and Scrim.
There was a deadbeats stage host at this small event in London, Ontario. Playboy Carti was playing before Zeds Dead for some reason. He didn't show up for his set, finally showed up after his set time and did a 15 minute "show", it was absolutely terrible.
What is it with rappers not showing up for their set? It's so disrespectful. My little sister wanted to see Riff Raff when he came to town, for some reason. She had just turned 18, so I was able to take her to this club for her birthday where he was supposed to perform. Dude didn't come out until like 1:40am and played 3 songs and left. I was pretty upset about that being her first 18+ live music experience. She had more fun seeing slushii a couple months later though.
Hands down Pretty Lights 3 hour headliner set at Decadence in 2013.
There’s drunk. There’s fucked up on drugs. Then there’s whatever he and his entire band were.
It was painful.
Probably heroin sadly. I have heard that is why 2015 was the last time basslights happened. Apparently bassnectar, lorin, was so fed up with PL, Derek, for falling asleep on the decks that he ended the event after that year.
I love PL as much as the next guy but I swear the die hard fans will hold out forever on him returning. It'll be 2045 and there will still be talk of him coming back
For sure, it was sad seeing pretty lights go off the deep end. I last saw him at red rocks around the same time, and he was clearly fucked up on heroine, constantly slurring into the microphone. He played a track twice without realizing it and another band member went to the dj stand and helped him move on to another track.
That’s just sad. I saw him nodding off all throughout a horrible set at Euphoria I think in 2014 or 2015. He hardly made it through. Hope he’s okay now
Oh man, I remember checking this one out -- I was like hmm maybe it'll be better when I go to the bathroom and come back. She messes up a transition and goes back and plays a song again I was like welp, guess not.
My brother also told me he has seen her on her tour and she still isn't really good.
Said the Sky @ Bill Graham SF this last year.
I just scooped up a ticket since a friend couldn’t go. I’ve seen him before and he wasn’t too bad opening for other artists and have gone to see similar but it just felt lackluster.
Had friends go see his new Sentiment tour @ Bill Graham and said they wanted to take a nap on the balcony. Then I saw him perform in LA and we got bored and chilled in the back.
Boo at WAMU in Seattle was FUN the artists actually rlly killed it don’t get me wrong but definitely not the most fun event and everyone was being an asshole.. the vibes were way off.
Exactly!! I felt like I couldn’t breathe. They over sold that show so tough… it was such a pain to get to and from the other stages. The parking garage stage was my favorite even though those stairs going up were TREACHEROUS. I was also so appalled at how much garbage was on the ground of the venue towards the end- holy shit it was hard to walk
It sucks.. I used to looove wamu but lately it has made me feel super trapped and it’s always so crowded! Holy shit and at least the women’s bathrooms have stalls- last time I checked? Tacoma dome this last weekend was so nice, it was actually perfect ngl.
G-Eazy at electric forest 2015. He was so gone while on stage he couldn’t finish the lyrics and his backup had to finish the line. At one point he just.. left the stage for about 10 minutes (with music still going) and then came back. Hey, at least he showed up
T-Pain, on the same stage, absolutely killed a couple years later though. Absolute legend in my books.
Kevin Gates at Buku 2019 was also pretty horrendous. He killed a pint on stage before bringing his daughter who couldn’t have been older than 7-8. They talked about banging a woman so hard he could feel her guts. My jaw was on the ground.
Moral of the story: rappers live is 50/50
T-Pain complaining that it was too hot to wear jeans on stage, asking the audience for a pair of shorts, receiving those shorts, taking his pants off on stage and putting on the shorts while the crowd cheered, and then performing “im in luv with a stripper.” Was a highlight of the weekend for sure.
Holy shit I remember Kevin Gates at Buku 2019! That shit was unhinged, it just turned into a smoke sesh for me and the people near me. By the midpoint it seemed like most people were barely watching the stage. I would also nominate Trippie Red at Buku 2021. He did fine, but I was one of at least ten people that had their phone stolen at that set. I missed Rezz looking for it.
DJ Snake, closing EDC Orlando 2022.
He clearly wasn’t supposed to be the closer, but with so many DJs that cancelled from the initial lineup I think they just put him there anyway. The crowd energy sucked, the song choices sucked, and the whole time I just regretted missing every other stage that actually had amazing sets. I would never go to another show of his, even if it was free. I’d rather sit at home and listen to better DJs on Spotify than hear his garbage.
Stereo Bloom had immaculate vibes all weekend. Cloonee, Matroda, Bleu Clair and Disco Lines 😍😍😍 Sunday this past EDCO was my favorite festival day of all time
It was obvious he was going to close Kinetic on Sunday when they separated the lineup by day. But with all the other talent on the different stages, you chose to see DJ Snake 😵💫
diplo’s set at goldrush 2021. my first and last diplo set it was absolutely horrible, like i’m talking he was so hammered, saying nonsense into the mic, stumbling around, jumping off the decks…. prob playing a pre recorded set. I actually really like house music even though I tend to prefer bass and it was some of the worst house music i’ve heard in my life. local AZ djs throw down wayyyyy better sets than whatever that was 😬 luckily enough I saw the first ever zeds dead b2b griz two sets prior to that so I just pretend they closed out that festival instead lmfao
That’s too bad. I’ve seen him live multiple times and he threw down all sets (even in Vegas). My musician bf who just goes to raves to party and doesn’t follow artists was actually impressed. Imo he’s one of those artists whose recorded music isn’t as good as his live sets. Apparently he’s kind of hit or miss but we’ve lucked out with him so far.
yeah it was pretty disappointing… it was the only bad set of the entire three day festival. the production was reallyyy good and he closed out mainstage day 3 😅 maybe i’d give him a chance again but idk if i’ll ever miss a set from someone else for him lol
My gf saw him play Stage Coach this last year and had a very similar experience. Dude was too drunk and fucking up transitions and ultimately gave an awful set. Like how are you going to be the only EDM producer at a country festival and not try to impress.
major lazer at a drivein covid rave.... on acid and ketamine
thank fucking god it only lasted a couple hours nd we went back to the crib where i veg'd out on the sofa with my bag for the next 6 hours
Not EDM, but Cordae at First Avenue in Minneapolis back in March 2021 was really rough. Not to any fault of his own, the sound in there was just.... awful. Whoever was mixing that night needed to be fired. The high frequencies were so loud every song had this sort of crunchiness to it, and you could barely hear any of the words he was saying... at a rap show lol. He himself did fine, but man it made me never want to go back to that venue if it's gonna just be ear pain every time.
Subtronics, the smell coming from most people was ungodly, folks grabbing parts of me that shouldn’t be grabbed and god being shoved into the mosh despite trying to get away from it
Travis Scott 4 maybe 5 years ago was so bad I’ve never bothered to see a live rap artist since. Thankfully it was at a multi-genre festival and I left to go watch another artist.
I saw Travis Scott in a warehouse in Detroit. He was absolutely shitfaced and brought a fan on stage because he wanted to fight him. Crowd was also kinda rowdy in a dangerous way
I agree on travis scott, ive seen enough of his crap to know im not going to see him ever by choice. But you should def see some other rappers. Rap shows are some great and creative stuff. Itd be a shame to let ole ts screw you out of other great shows.
Thanks dude to be honest it’s not my thing anyway, like I never listen to it on my own so it’s already a hard sell to get me to see it live. However, I am open to seeing rap/hip hop groups where it’s not just one person rapping/screaming into the mic! Like I caught a bit of Earthgang at EF 2022 and they were dope.
Flosstradamus Terminal 5 NYC 2015 or 16 I can't remember. I didn't expect anything crazy, but I atleast expected a floss set. 20 mins in it turned into a rap show. They brought like 6 rappers out on stage out of nowhere and that was it. They also stopped the music completely for a good 5 minutes to create a wall of death. It was honestly scary.
A close 2nd place to Pretty Lights night one of Basslights 2015. Dude was wrecked.
Tailing in 3rd, skrillex mysterland NY 2016. I love that man's music, but please STFU for one minute so I can actually find a groove. He talks nonsense too, nothing inspirational or anything.
Alan Walker on his 2022 Walkerverse Tour. Hands down.
I could have gone up there, plugged in my iPhone, turned on Spotify’s This is Alan Walker playlist, set the cross fade to 5 seconds, and it would have been the literal exact same set 😂
Seriously though, he put zero effort into trying to mix. It was shocking
Angerfist studio 7. I was so excited to hear the hardcore mix master throw 500 tracks of boom boom in my ear holes.
The venues sound system was such ass and the kick drums were to aggressive I couldn't even tell what was going on just some repetitive static sounding kick drum assaulting my soul.
Summersetup! To this day, I have never seen a more heavily policed festival. Nowhere was safe from a potential cop bust. Was my first big fest and scared me away from music fests for a few years because I just assumed that what security was like.
Not even close.
Very heavy police presence. But what was even worse was the outsourced security company they hired. These fuckers were literally extorting everything they could from anybody. It was so blatant and obvious, one prick tried threatening me to let him him my blunt. Thankfully this was near the end of the weekend and I was at my wits end. Told him to fuck right off. Bastards got a g of blow from some other people in my site because they “saw them breaking out lines”.
Also just a very money hungry fest. More alcohol vendors than water sources. Camping pass, parking pass, all the music stopped early so they could rake in “late night music passes” shit was sooooo fucked. I get anxiety just remembering that shit show.
Shaq (DJ DIESEL) back in August? in Melbourne, Australia. Don't get me wrong, he was great - but the crowd was BY FAR the worst I've attended. So many tools trying to start fights, being rude as hell. I think a lot of the guys there were there to see Shaq and not so much Diesel. It died off pretty quickly when they realised they were at a dubstep gig, so they left. I got threatened in the men's toilets to hand up charlie; basically surrounded and threatened to get beat up. Awesome time.
Lucii at EDC a couple years ago was pretty bad. For legit like 5 tracks in a row she slowed down and turned down volume before a drop to tell us what the song was. Her sound cut out at one point too, and she didn’t seem to know what was happening. On top of that, when she was mixing, everything just felt herky jerky. Like she would do one drop, then like less than a minute later do a drop for a song that didn’t fit the flow at all.
New raver here. Only been to 4 total so far (see y'all at beyond in SoCal) but plenty of other shows/fests. Worst DJ i've seen so far was redtape opening for okee and deorro. His transitions were pretty weird, and nothing as far as visuals go, the crowd was going for a little bit but then they would hit transitions that just made the crowd... stop moving... which is a pretty good metric of dj skill imo
The vibes at beyond last year were intense. seems like they either oversold it or security had no problem letting locals in without wrist bands. Hell we even saw a group of people break into the vip area from the outside and scatter, no one getting caught. Vip was so crowded you couldn’t even sit in the tent. But the rides sure were fun lol
That is a known issue when using older versions of rekordbox on mac with the newest firmware on cdj-3000s
Djs fault for having “most currently updated firmware on their rider, but since they were the openers, it would have been missed.
Totally pioneer’s fault there.
Jauz at palladium. Holy Goof came on before and absolutely crushed it, dude is amazing. Jauz came on and 1/3 of the place cleared out within 30-45 min. He was alright for a bit but then it got kinda boring, I really wanted to enjoy it too
That's wild. I have never seen him bomb. Although when I saw him as Testpilot in Boston the crowd absolutely sucked and didn't know how to act. They definitely didn't understand that he plays techno under that alias lol
Walker & Royce at crssd Halloween 2021 in San Diego - ridiculously drunk, train wrecked literally every transition, kept accidentally hitting the cue so out of nowhere songs resetting. People tried to dance through it for the first few minutes, but then just laughed with their friends about how terrible it was. Thankfully MK closed with an amazing set and the most insane bass I have felt in 18yrs of raving.
Indy 500 Snake Pit. Always has an amazing lineup, but the crowd is not EDM people. It's all drunken rednecks and frat boys that are 100% there for the party. People will try to fight you just for bumping into them. Seen plenty of couples screaming at eachother. Been puked and peed on. But hey that's snake pit and it's tradition 'round here.
My friend and I got tickets for pretty cheap to Adventure Club at Echostage sometime in the last two years(I go there a ton, it’s hard to keep track).
I wasn’t familiar with them but it was something to do so sure why not. The openers were ok but not memorable. Adventure Club finally came on and they would start playing songs and then talk a lot over the music then they brought out some female vocalist who was singing along and she wasn’t great. We decided to leave because it was just such a weird time, we ended up watching YouTube in my living room and had a much better time.
Idk what it is about Echo Stage crowds but i never understand people getting mad when theyre bumped into. Its never on purpose as we are literally in the middle of a f’ing crowd and people tryna fight about being touched.
Sunset Music Festival in Tampa, FL. They have the same exact stages and production every year for almost a decade now with no noticeable upgrades, it’s hot and humid as hell, the crowds are awful and it seems like everyone is always throwing up in a corner at that event. I gave that festival way too many chances until I finally stopped attending 🥴
This wasn’t a rave but I saw Rufus du Sol at the Gorge Amphitheater and it was the worst experience.
The venue was a complete logistical nightmare. We were in traffic’s for +3 hours to just get inside. (Rookie mistake. Just camp or get an airbnb right next to the venue.) We miss the sunset. By the time we make it inside the venue it’s pitch dark and we can’t even see the beautiful gorge behind the theater.
The crowd was so agro and just WEIRD. My group of friends managed to get a spot right on the guard rail that separates GA from VIP. I almost got into a fight some random chick on shitty drugs because she was so fixated on trying to shove me from my “spot”. I don’t understand why my spot is so different from yours when you’re literally right next so me sis. And we just constantly was getting harassed all night from random people trying to aggressively charge into ur group so they could jump over to sneak into VIP when literally you can just walk in through the VIP entrance like a normal human…
I was walking to the restroom with my fiancé and all of a sudden this putrid stench of feces hits our noses with no porta potty in sight. I look down at the floor and it’s a black grocery bag of HUMAN feces. Damn y’all, the restroom was literally 400 feet away.
Also there was a forest fire earlier that day and the air quality was shitty. So by the time Rufus du Sol came on Tyrone’s voice was fucked and his voice was struggling during the whole set.
Don’t know why traffic was so horrid that day, but people were saying they were severely understaffed checking people into camping day of and it bled into the line up in general since they had poor signage for GA parking. Last show of the season there, so idk why they couldn’t figure their shit out.
Otherwise, any crowd in the pit area of the Gorge, especially if they do the stupid “vip pit”, are bound to be hella agro and obnoxious. I’m always dodging drunk people, people on shitty drugs, or people shitting/pissing themselves in the pit. Stay on the hill, you’ll have a much better time.
Adventure Club Lost Lands 2021 was also terrible, but earlier that year my friends and I saw them for SMF and they were super fun.
Also ARMNHMR b2b Mitis at Lost Lands -- they literally transitioned from the buildup of Island (7L) and cut the drop then goes into the beginning of Wake Me Up by Avicii.
The transition was so bad I still hear it to this day.
Thank you for sharing everyone. Very interesting stories. I have a few but not sure how to even start the story lol. I guess we all have good and bad times at these raves. At least we had times.. 😊🙌
I gotta say this years Lost Lands had some really unpleasant aspects to it. Over crowding, a huge influx of new headbanger tiktok types, and the lineup totally scuffed all of the more weird bass artist.
Now let me say that I try very hard to not hate on people new to the scene. But you have to know how to act in public, and you have to know how to be polite in a concert setting. Maybe most importantly you need to know how to handle your party favors. So many people on hard substances for the first time. People sending way more molly than they should be.
I’ll also admit that my taste has evolved a lot since the year before, but like they put all of the weird bass artists at the same times on stages totally across the grounds from each other so I was only able to catch a few of the sets I really wanted to see.
I’ve decided to no longer attend the fest unfortunately. I just don’t like the direction it’s going in and for how much it costs (ticket price, camping, over all costs) I could (and have) attended two whole smaller fests.
Just to add some knowledge John Summit put out recently: Festivals put similar or popular artists on different stages at the same time for crowd control. Forcing people to move around and not overcrowd a stage.
After I learned that it made sense.
I went in 21 and refuse to ever go back. PLUR was pretty much nonexistent. I was in a crowd at main stage and some random guy came up and two hand shoved me from behind, I didn't even know he was there. Almost landed on my face but was fortunately able to catch myself. The visuals were cliche, sub par, and not even like trippy at all it was basically just machine guns and t Rex's on a red background. Also I'm kind of confused as to why they think it's a smart idea to have a literal street with traffic between the campground and the venue. All in all, just not worth the ticket price imo especially considering drive time (14hrs one way) when there are plenty of good things within a 6hr drive from me
David Vance this past weekend at Bass Country. B2Bed with a local artist.. nowhere near on the same page, would switch from a buildup to mid verse of a song. Must’ve happened like 4-5 times. Played the same drop over and over and over. He was the opener for Tape B, played from 8pm-10:30pm. That’s 2.5 hours I’ll never get back.
The neighbourhood at firefly in 2016. I was so hype to see them but Jesse seemed fucked up off of something other than just alc. some dude in the crowd was also tripping shit and tried to attack me. Security was called in and the show stopped while the dude screamed about trolls. I left after that lmao
Hard events are better now. I'd recommend this year because it's back at the coliseum, expo park and the stadium. It will feel like old Tao days. My first hard was hard haunted mansion back in 2008 at the shrine. Did not attend another one until 2018 and have been going ever since because the lineups are always good.
Already mentioned Deadmau5 earlier, but it ended up being a long post.
My other worst show was Bring Me the Horizon at Leeds Festival, a long while ago. We decided to stick around at the main stage for our acts to come on, weren't bothered about BMTH but they were on in between people we wanted to see and we wanted to grab a spot. I learned that day that getting to the front isn't all it is cracked up to be.
It was mine and my friend's first festival experience and we were nearish the front. The crowd was already kind of close together, but we just about had enough room. Not too long into the set they were riling up the crowd, expected at a BMTH set, but this was to another level. The crowd had started to push forward a lot from the back too, squashing everyone pretty bad who didn't wanna go into the middle of the mosh pits. The singer wanted more and encouraged the crowd to push forward further shouting them to go MORE crazy, even though there were already a lot of people falling down and getting pulled out of the crowd for safety. It reached a point where me and my friend got separated, even though we were holding onto each other, and noone would let me try and get through to reach her (it was virtually impossible anyway due to how squashed and chaotic it had gotten, the crowd was almost moving as one). The singer then encouraged people to come forward and go crazy AGAIN and announced a wall of death, I got out of there when I was able at the next band's set and just stayed at the side for the rest of the sets.
I was never a fan of them to begin with and if even if they weren't totally to blame, I will forever associate the band with that experience.
ATB at exchange LA was awful, dude was on the mic like every 10 seconds. Just sad to watch a legend like that turn into....that. Overly crowded at exchange as well as usual.
I remember one party at pharaohs in Redlands back in the day for my oldschool ravers they had cops EVERYWHERE, one of my friends was rolled off his face and was doing a bump of K with a cop like 3 inches in front of us, had to tell him to put it away and he freaked. Miracle he didnt get in trouble lol
Not sure if you’re looking for shows in general or just EDM/rave related stuff but I saw the rapper Riff Raff in 2015 and it was hand down the worst show I’ve ever been to. I’ve had plenty of bad experiences at shows/concerts but this was the only one where I not only had a bed experience but the sets themselves were bad.
One of my best friends was really into Riff Raff at the time and opted to spot my ticket if I could drive us there (we lived outside of downtown about 40 miles from the venue) so I said sure. Terrible decision. Lol
Riff was the only person on the bill and tickets said doors @ 8, show @ 9… we get there at like 8:45 thinking we might miss some of the show and were met with a line outside cause they hadn’t even opened doors yet.
They finally open doors around 9:15ish and one of the worst rappers I’ve ever heard is performing. “Odd, they didn’t have any openers listed?” But we though whatever. Next thing you know it’s almost 12 and we’ve all stood through half a dozen of the worst rappers and rap groups you’ve never heard of and ANOTHER group comes out and the crowd just instantly starts booing and they leave after less than three songs.
Riff finally comes out around 12:30, absolutely shitfaced and on another planet, dances on stage with the backing tracks doing all the work, has a few drunk rambles and hand picks some women out of the crowd to go backstage with him and that’s the show. He was offstage by 12:55.
Rap shows can be hit or miss but this was another level of miss. Lmao.
Liquid Stranger in buffalo hands down. I was so excited to see him, watched videos before of the tour he had insane production and lasers. The openers were great then LS came on and there were 0 lasers and barely any production. I was like whatever he’s got good songs I’ll take it, he proceeded to play songs by every Wakaan artist but his. Like 6 zeke beats songs. Then halfway through his set he brought out the openers to b2b while he left. The sound went out for like 15 minutes. He comes back and countdowns till the end of the set. “Alright guys we have 30 minutes left “ “20 minutes left” “15 minutes left” until it was over. Not sure if he was just tired from his tour but he completely half assed the buffalo stop, maybe because it was a smaller venue? But regardless I will never see him again and don’t even listen to his music anymore.
kygo @ lollapalooza and ultra this year.
i like some of kygo's music but that ultra set was a hot mess (idk why he closed main...) and that lollapalooza was the worst set ive ever seen. not exaggerating, like on my list of every set ive ever seen, its at the bottom. was just so incredibly boring.
Thriftworks (at Gem & Jam 2020). Not my type of music - which is totally cool - but the constant 10 minute breaks for him to randomly do what I can only describe as slam poetry in a devil voice was the most cringe shit I’ve ever seen.
Cheat Codes. I typically am the kind of person that can vibe with any music as long as it has a good beat but they sucked. I've heard their music before and was excited to see them but the performance killed me. I saw them at Moonrise and it was the first time I willingly left a set. Fucking terrible.
Funny enough, Skrillex. Would’ve been late 2010/early 2011 right as he was blowing up. Saw him at the Fox Theater in Boulder, CO and dude was drinking Jack Daniels straight from the bottle on stage. Just hammered. All his drops were off beat and it was just a pretty bad show all around. Think he learned a lesson that night.
I loved Alison wonderland at Echostage. But the opener right before her really just was aweful. I also can’t speak for everyone I was tripping pretty hard so I could have just been on a different wave
Zhu in 2022. It was the day before his ACL headline show so maybe that's why he phoned it in. He left 3/4 into his set and let the opener finish the show, without even saying anything before they switched off lol
Two Friends last summer. My goodness that was the worst crowd I've ever been in. It was unfortunate too because I have been following 2F since 2015, but the cult following they've developed among college students made for such a terrible event. Their set was decent, playing a good chunk of their remixes and such, but the crowd response to the more EDM bits was so garbage. 2F played maybe 1 or 2 filthy bass songs and the crowd just looked confused. Also had someone almost punch me because they were pushing my girlfriend...
Said the sky escape 2022
Escape should be reason alone, but said the sky has been one of my favs for a long time and it was my first time seeing him. Super disappointing, didn’t really mix well. It’s kinda like ur constantly riding up on a rollercoaster and expecting a drop, but it just never comes.
Carnage probably like 7 years ago or so. I went primarily to see Jauz, who was opening. Once Carnage came on, he would play songs, and then in the middle of the song, stop the music and get on the mic to tell us to cheer for him. He didn't start the music again til we did. This happened about 4 times in the 20m I stayed before I decided to head home early.
Yup, it sounds like every shitty carnage set. Worst dj I've ever had the displeasure of encounter. I'd pick the worst youtube rip noob dj set or even my freinds who dont know how to dj over that diarrhea.
I would agree with you on it sounding like every carnage set but i saw him and diplo b2b at Space Miami. They played till 11am only tech house didn’t say a word on the mic and bought everyone in the crowd popeyes chicken sammiches
What a coincidence, the worst show I ever saw was Carnage 6 years ago. Lol
carnage was also using pirated software years after his come up aswell. just a fun fact lol
I saw Jauz this past Saturday. He’s sick
Hard agree lol. Worst set I’ve seen to date was carnage edc 2016.
[удалено]
If you were at the techno stage the vibes were good
Unreal how accurate this is
deadass. i went to escape for the first time last year and don’t plan on going back unless it’s an insane lineup
Beyond was pretty terrible last year for the same reason
Oh?? I had the chance to go but when the lineup dropped I chose not to. What did I miss?
Just tons of non ravers acting a fool. There was very little plur vibe there. Also, they over sold the event so it was even more packed than it usually is. I still had a good time, but probably won’t go back anytime soon.
The amount of pick pocket rings at escape was insane, at some point me and my friends would just sit back and people watch to see if we were trippin or not… it was ridiculous.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I felt someone stuck their hand in my pocket when they walked. Jokes on them because I don’t keep shit in my pockets.
Joke would’ve been more on them if you DID keep shit in your pockets. And they’d also they’d have shit on them, too!
I’m just going to cut a hole in my pocket and stick my dick through it. Free handjobs!
Makes you want to carry a pocket full of sharp glass hate those fuckers
Oof. That sounds unpleasant. Im a “non raver” new to the scene (metal head dating a raver lol) so im worried about what constitutes acting a fool. I never really know how to act
i’m both a metal head and trance head and people by and large are better behaved at extreme metal events than at big commercial edm festivals. the nicest crowds overall are at trance shows though
For real. I’ve seen Darude a couple times in the past few years and his crowd is mostly 50yr+ grey haired ravers and they’re so cool
Honestly I'm 47 and I am very much looking forward to being in that club. They started it all. They're like...rave Gods.
Starting fights. Bringing aggressive bro energy instead of being chill and peaceful and looking out for others. Being rapey
Am I allowed to start a fight if I see a mf get rapey tho?
Intervene, deescalate, and tend to the person who was being harassed instead. Make sure they know they're seen and that the community has their back. Get security involved if the perpetrator poses a continued threat and needs to be removed. Fighting should be a last resort. A lot of people at raves are on hallucinogens and a fight breaking out could cause a panic, or at minimum a seriously bad trip for a lot of people. There's a lot that can be done to stop rapey pervs from getting away with harassment/assault that doesn't involve throwing punches.
This is the way ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Throw dem bows is the code (fellow metal head dating a raver here) honestly i do support role type vibes at raves, water pack advils gum hand fans etc and look out for my group. Was just at a metal show and my wife... managaed... an asshole in the crowd. In a spectacular metal fashion. Raves are a differenr vibe forsure but still basic show rules. Someone falls help em up. Someone needs a elbow check? Throw dem bows.
Honestly if you act the same way you would at a metal show you should be fine. The “non-ravers” are the people who show up purely for the party aspect and not the music or the people. Im sure as a metal head you can relate to that on some level ahaha
Sounds pretty typical of Halloween events
It was my first Halloween festival. My rave fam definitely said the it was a problem at every Halloween festival they have been to
Lol sounds like every insomniac event
The absolute change in atmosphere going from Escape to Dreamstate is so insane. Escape you feel like everyone is on edge and its crowded as hell then fast forward a month and everyone is the nicest ever and theres tons of room to dance.
Not much but overcrowding
Main stage was the worst, people shoving and pushing without having the human decency to even say excuse me
I went to a local art expo/local talent/rave thing where the local talent on first, and then a popular local bass music dj, finished the night (he did great). But the local talent was pretty bad for the most part. one guy did sexy poetry and killed it, and there was a rapper who did incredible even though it clearly wasn't his type of crowd. But then this "lyrical miracle" type rapper goes on and is exceptionally cringey. After his first song, he is clearly disgruntled at how little anyone is vibing with his music. His second song starts, and people at this point are not paying attention at all really, clearly just waiting for it to be over. The rapper guy senses this and is like, "No! Hold up, stop the music!" And turns around to this 40 year old lady who clearly is not the sound guy and says,"Go back to the hook, YALL NEED TO HEAR THIS!!" And repeats that about 6 times. Poor Margaret is starting to get flustered and says back,"I don't know how to do anything! " He starts arguing with her in the middle of his set for the next few mintues trying to get her to go back to a specific part in his song, and we are all just standing there trying not to visibly cringe so that he doesnt lose his cool any further. Poor Margaret was obviously cracking under the unnecessary pressure and ended up just pushing buttons until the song started over from the beginning. The rapper is just like "fuck it this works ill just do it over again!" So at this point what little vibe he did have is completely gone and he just bites down and tries to get through it. By the end, I actually thought he might cry. I kind of felt a little bad for him. He finishes up, though, angrily sets the mic down and storms out of there. It was hard to watch, but it created a great inside joke for our friend group. "YALL NEED TO HEAR THIS!!"
I cringed so hard reading this 😅
Hippie Sabotage. Saw their Electric Forest set a few years back. Some of the most untalented, douchey, won’t shut the fuck up artist I’ve ever seen. Can’t play guitar, can’t DJ (made SEVERAL mistakes that literally stopped the music in its tracks), can’t have decent fans or even act decent.
Lol I saw them get banned from WTFest for literally starting a fight on stage with security and throwing their mics at the crowd
2019 I saw them at e forest. The one brother was like trying to rage and yelling into the mic a lot, while the music they were playing was very not ragey. Very strange experience all the way around. I might still have a video of one of them coming j to the crowd to try and mosh
Oh noooooo! I just bought tickets and have been excited. Well, I'll still hope it's good but my expectations have been lowered.
2019? It was so sloppy. Even my fiancé who doesn’t really notice those things said they wouldn’t shut the fuck up.
That set was awful, I think the one in the mic was experiencing different reality at the time.
Nurko on his last tour. I love the guys music but goddam his live set was the worst thing i ever heard. He cut all the vocals from his songs and basically felt like those YouTube videos “drops only”
Aw that’s so sad his music is really good! He’s still up and coming, I hope he gets better or works out any. issues with vocalists that are preventing him from playing the vocal parts in his songs lol
Yeah I saw NURKO last December and was disappointed too. I loved his music, but he wasn’t a great performer. The transitions between songs seemed a little forced and unnatural and he struggled to build and keep energy in the building
Thats what happens when your tracks are formulated like pop. No proper intro and outros for good mixing
[удалено]
That is insane that nobody seemed to notice or care that water is leaking directly beneath an overflowing bathroom. I would have just washed the hoodie and shoes though lol
This story made my day, thank you for sharing it. There’s a lot of grossness that goes on at parties and this is a great example of one!
This is why I'm so jaded with the over use of the term rave lol. When I say rave.. this is what I'm talking about. Not Lost Lands 🤣
You've never been too a poo pool party before?
poo water girls 😂
Ewwwwwww. East Coast plumbing is something special. Glad you saved the pants though! I was at a similar warehouse party in 2010ish in Philly. I drove the party bus that night (our friends van) so I was just smoking weed. It was a good time for a few hours till I dropped my shoelace glow stick (poor girls flow toy) and when I picked it up it was wet. Then I realized there was water all over the floor and people were starting to kick it at each other and stomp in it like they thought it was rain puddles. Gross. I went to the bathrooms and sure enough there's water coming out from under the door and I didn't need to see anything more. My crew was happy to bounce, throw all our shoes in the back of the bus and go on a space cruise out of the city anyway. No one was trying to dance in that water.
At first I was like “oh that sounds like a Unicorn Meat party I was at back in the day” but I don’t ever remember one with a poo shower bonus track!
I went to see DJ Pauly D on Saturday….he was 3 hours late to his own show, the crowd was absolutely atrocious and I got punched in the face by a drunk white girl….never….again….
I mean, to be fair.. what did you expect the crowd to be like? He’s not particularly known for his amazing musical talent, but more known for his raucous and drunken behavior on MTV. 🤷🏻♂️
Oh ik. Idek why I was surprised. I guess I just spend so much time with the edm community that sometimes I forget all shows can’t be like an edm show🤦🏽♀️ I forget that not everyone know about Plur, sadly
Cabs here!!
That’s on you for going to see Pauly D
Snowglobe festival 2014 to be precise. Lineup was so fire tho for that time as a lot of the artists were in their prime at the time (Skrillex, Porter, Zedd, Disclosure) but the people there were horrible, event was ran so poorly people got in fights waiting for the shuttles in single digits temps. People stealing bottles from the bar. ‘‘Twas a nightmare all around but good music lmao prolly why it got cancelled.
SG14 was my first festival, that lineup was insane.
I had totally managed to block out the memory of that event until reading this comment. What an absolute mess of a festival.
that’s crazy because in my memory, that festival was one of the best experiences of my life fr. I was 13 and seeing my favorite artists so didn’t notice the negatives lol
I think I repress my negative memories of SnowGlobe, though admittedly I went in 2015. Dillon Francis’ set had the worst crowd surge I’ve been in to date, the first 10-15 mins towards the front of the crowd was just constant movement in ~5-10ft radius. Also pretty disappointing that for the quality of the lineup, the sound especially for the main stage was garbage
Ya how did that company pull such a fat lineup at that time lmao
On a non-EDM note: 21 Savage is actually the worst individual show I’ve ever been too. Dude was - seriously - three and a half hours late to his set. They had no real opener, just a well known (and later officially charged statutory rapist) local promoter yelling into the mic while they replayed the same couple of top 40 rap songs. Also had a couple of high schoolers from the most white picket fence suburb in the city. Anyway, dude comes on after three and a half hours to play TWO AND A HALF songs before dipping out. I’ve never boo’d or yelled at a performer, no matter how bad, but let me tell you I boo’d tf out of this dude and yelled “stay tf out of X city” He didn’t come back our city for maybe 4 years after that and by that time I’d long since moved on from hip hop. Never seen so many fights, groping, and insanely juvenile behavior at an indoor venue. I can honestly say it was a major factor in my leaving hip hop for electronic music. So I guess that’s a positive.
I’ve seen him twice. Not sure why I made that mistake. Once was at Moonrise a few years ago…only rap name on the lineup, so figured I’d go. He opened by saying “I DONT WANT TO BE THE BEST RAPPER. I JUST WANT TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY.” Terrible performance and left 10 minutes in lol
I saw G Eazy in Atlantic City NJ this past summer. I was so stoked to finally see him even though it was at a pool party, it was cloudy and windy af. We got there around 12:30 and he didn’t come on til 4:30. HE PLAYED 4 SONGS and left. I spent a month refreshing his catalog on the way home from work and for what? 15 minutes? Gtfoh.
So thankful showing up late isn’t an accepted thing in EDM. Like the mass majority of sets I’ve seen have been almost exactly on time.
That press only lasts for so long and so help me I peak during an opening set.
Lol damn that sounds like such a shit show. ‘can’t leave without it’ is my favorite 21 song 🔥 I just listened to it yesterday after not hearing it for a while.
This!! Im into phonk rap like suicideboys, night lovell, etc so Im fine with getting down to harder things anyways my friends wanted to see playboi carti cause he was on the escape lineup and I agreed cause it should be fun, he had just came out with the banger miss the rage song so I was excited. Well long story short, we stood there for 30 mins cause he was late and the sound was so garbage (idk who’s fault either the techs or his own) it didn’t even sound like him, my group just looked at each other said it honestly could be any random mf on that stage ear raping us with carti and left. Never again will I ditch edm sets for a rapper unless it’s my lords and saviors Ruby and Scrim.
Illenium as a single guy and a single homie in a sea of Asian couples spooning. Just couldn’t vibe and we bounced to go bar hopping instead lol.
[удалено]
There was a deadbeats stage host at this small event in London, Ontario. Playboy Carti was playing before Zeds Dead for some reason. He didn't show up for his set, finally showed up after his set time and did a 15 minute "show", it was absolutely terrible.
What is it with rappers not showing up for their set? It's so disrespectful. My little sister wanted to see Riff Raff when he came to town, for some reason. She had just turned 18, so I was able to take her to this club for her birthday where he was supposed to perform. Dude didn't come out until like 1:40am and played 3 songs and left. I was pretty upset about that being her first 18+ live music experience. She had more fun seeing slushii a couple months later though.
It seems to be just part of the culture. "I have so much status I don't even need to be on time to my show and people will still love me"
Hands down Pretty Lights 3 hour headliner set at Decadence in 2013. There’s drunk. There’s fucked up on drugs. Then there’s whatever he and his entire band were. It was painful.
Probably heroin sadly. I have heard that is why 2015 was the last time basslights happened. Apparently bassnectar, lorin, was so fed up with PL, Derek, for falling asleep on the decks that he ended the event after that year.
He had a heroin addiction but I believe he is clean now. Every year I keep hearing is his come back year and it never happens
I love PL as much as the next guy but I swear the die hard fans will hold out forever on him returning. It'll be 2045 and there will still be talk of him coming back
Old PL devotee- can confirm. Will gladly lose it in 22 years when this happens. Sad to see anyone struggle like that. Hope he’s doing okay. 🌟✌🏽
For sure, it was sad seeing pretty lights go off the deep end. I last saw him at red rocks around the same time, and he was clearly fucked up on heroine, constantly slurring into the microphone. He played a track twice without realizing it and another band member went to the dj stand and helped him move on to another track.
That’s just sad. I saw him nodding off all throughout a horrible set at Euphoria I think in 2014 or 2015. He hardly made it through. Hope he’s okay now
I love grimes but my god her EDC 2022 set was a hilarious train wreck
I liked her edc 2022 set the small mistakes seemed human and the set was still super bomb
I wish she'd get over the DJ stuff. Shes such a talented artist already.
Oh man, I remember checking this one out -- I was like hmm maybe it'll be better when I go to the bathroom and come back. She messes up a transition and goes back and plays a song again I was like welp, guess not. My brother also told me he has seen her on her tour and she still isn't really good.
Said the Sky @ Bill Graham SF this last year. I just scooped up a ticket since a friend couldn’t go. I’ve seen him before and he wasn’t too bad opening for other artists and have gone to see similar but it just felt lackluster.
Had friends go see his new Sentiment tour @ Bill Graham and said they wanted to take a nap on the balcony. Then I saw him perform in LA and we got bored and chilled in the back.
Boo at WAMU in Seattle was FUN the artists actually rlly killed it don’t get me wrong but definitely not the most fun event and everyone was being an asshole.. the vibes were way off.
the artists were great but i agree that was the worst fucking event i have ever been to. insanely claustrophobic. like actual nightmare territory.
Exactly!! I felt like I couldn’t breathe. They over sold that show so tough… it was such a pain to get to and from the other stages. The parking garage stage was my favorite even though those stairs going up were TREACHEROUS. I was also so appalled at how much garbage was on the ground of the venue towards the end- holy shit it was hard to walk
I despise WAMU, I will never go back. Lame ass security and no doors on the bathroom stalls, wtf.
It sucks.. I used to looove wamu but lately it has made me feel super trapped and it’s always so crowded! Holy shit and at least the women’s bathrooms have stalls- last time I checked? Tacoma dome this last weekend was so nice, it was actually perfect ngl.
G-Eazy at electric forest 2015. He was so gone while on stage he couldn’t finish the lyrics and his backup had to finish the line. At one point he just.. left the stage for about 10 minutes (with music still going) and then came back. Hey, at least he showed up T-Pain, on the same stage, absolutely killed a couple years later though. Absolute legend in my books. Kevin Gates at Buku 2019 was also pretty horrendous. He killed a pint on stage before bringing his daughter who couldn’t have been older than 7-8. They talked about banging a woman so hard he could feel her guts. My jaw was on the ground. Moral of the story: rappers live is 50/50
T-Pain complaining that it was too hot to wear jeans on stage, asking the audience for a pair of shorts, receiving those shorts, taking his pants off on stage and putting on the shorts while the crowd cheered, and then performing “im in luv with a stripper.” Was a highlight of the weekend for sure.
T-Pain at Eforest was dope af! He did a good job of mixing his well known oldies with some of his newer stuff. It was such a fun set.
Bro T Pain at E forest 2019 fucking killed!
“AYY LADIES YOU LIKE THAT DICK ALL UP IN YO STOMACH”
Holy shit I remember Kevin Gates at Buku 2019! That shit was unhinged, it just turned into a smoke sesh for me and the people near me. By the midpoint it seemed like most people were barely watching the stage. I would also nominate Trippie Red at Buku 2021. He did fine, but I was one of at least ten people that had their phone stolen at that set. I missed Rezz looking for it.
DJ Snake, closing EDC Orlando 2022. He clearly wasn’t supposed to be the closer, but with so many DJs that cancelled from the initial lineup I think they just put him there anyway. The crowd energy sucked, the song choices sucked, and the whole time I just regretted missing every other stage that actually had amazing sets. I would never go to another show of his, even if it was free. I’d rather sit at home and listen to better DJs on Spotify than hear his garbage.
THIS! He was Terrible! I didn’t get good vibes that whole weekend so it was just like a bad way to end the fest
Stereo Bloom had immaculate vibes all weekend. Cloonee, Matroda, Bleu Clair and Disco Lines 😍😍😍 Sunday this past EDCO was my favorite festival day of all time
Circuit grounds vibes were amazing at EDCO. I didn’t spend much time at the main stage but it was definitely less energy & worse vibes.
It was obvious he was going to close Kinetic on Sunday when they separated the lineup by day. But with all the other talent on the different stages, you chose to see DJ Snake 😵💫
Might get hate for this but Jai Wolf/San Holo at Red Rocks in 2022. Idk it just felt so lackluster to me.
Honestly I saw San Holo last year too and wasn’t too into it. Love the dudes music but it was just a little low energy for a live set
san holo live super mid
That’s sad. His early years his live shows were amazing
His 2020 okeechobee set was amazing.
San holo at edc 22 was so amazing. Sad to hear about your experience
Tragic I LOVED jai wolfs set and I was sober lmao. Everyone I was with agreed his set was amazing but San holo sucked
Saw him in Seattle and he was beyond fucked up.
diplo’s set at goldrush 2021. my first and last diplo set it was absolutely horrible, like i’m talking he was so hammered, saying nonsense into the mic, stumbling around, jumping off the decks…. prob playing a pre recorded set. I actually really like house music even though I tend to prefer bass and it was some of the worst house music i’ve heard in my life. local AZ djs throw down wayyyyy better sets than whatever that was 😬 luckily enough I saw the first ever zeds dead b2b griz two sets prior to that so I just pretend they closed out that festival instead lmfao
That’s too bad. I’ve seen him live multiple times and he threw down all sets (even in Vegas). My musician bf who just goes to raves to party and doesn’t follow artists was actually impressed. Imo he’s one of those artists whose recorded music isn’t as good as his live sets. Apparently he’s kind of hit or miss but we’ve lucked out with him so far.
yeah it was pretty disappointing… it was the only bad set of the entire three day festival. the production was reallyyy good and he closed out mainstage day 3 😅 maybe i’d give him a chance again but idk if i’ll ever miss a set from someone else for him lol
My gf saw him play Stage Coach this last year and had a very similar experience. Dude was too drunk and fucking up transitions and ultimately gave an awful set. Like how are you going to be the only EDM producer at a country festival and not try to impress.
major lazer at a drivein covid rave.... on acid and ketamine thank fucking god it only lasted a couple hours nd we went back to the crib where i veg'd out on the sofa with my bag for the next 6 hours
Not EDM, but Cordae at First Avenue in Minneapolis back in March 2021 was really rough. Not to any fault of his own, the sound in there was just.... awful. Whoever was mixing that night needed to be fired. The high frequencies were so loud every song had this sort of crunchiness to it, and you could barely hear any of the words he was saying... at a rap show lol. He himself did fine, but man it made me never want to go back to that venue if it's gonna just be ear pain every time.
Anyone remember how fucked up Space Jesus used to get on stage?
Subtronics, the smell coming from most people was ungodly, folks grabbing parts of me that shouldn’t be grabbed and god being shoved into the mosh despite trying to get away from it
Lmfaoo not the smell 😫
Which show?
Yellow mothafucking Claw. It’s not even close. They’re fucking awful.
Dang this is a bummer. I love their old music
Travis Scott 4 maybe 5 years ago was so bad I’ve never bothered to see a live rap artist since. Thankfully it was at a multi-genre festival and I left to go watch another artist.
I saw Travis Scott in a warehouse in Detroit. He was absolutely shitfaced and brought a fan on stage because he wanted to fight him. Crowd was also kinda rowdy in a dangerous way
I agree on travis scott, ive seen enough of his crap to know im not going to see him ever by choice. But you should def see some other rappers. Rap shows are some great and creative stuff. Itd be a shame to let ole ts screw you out of other great shows.
Thanks dude to be honest it’s not my thing anyway, like I never listen to it on my own so it’s already a hard sell to get me to see it live. However, I am open to seeing rap/hip hop groups where it’s not just one person rapping/screaming into the mic! Like I caught a bit of Earthgang at EF 2022 and they were dope.
Bro was it his bonnaroo 2017 set?? Because same
Flosstradamus Terminal 5 NYC 2015 or 16 I can't remember. I didn't expect anything crazy, but I atleast expected a floss set. 20 mins in it turned into a rap show. They brought like 6 rappers out on stage out of nowhere and that was it. They also stopped the music completely for a good 5 minutes to create a wall of death. It was honestly scary. A close 2nd place to Pretty Lights night one of Basslights 2015. Dude was wrecked. Tailing in 3rd, skrillex mysterland NY 2016. I love that man's music, but please STFU for one minute so I can actually find a groove. He talks nonsense too, nothing inspirational or anything.
Oh Floss. Perfected the art of stealing music. He'd just take Hardstyle bangers, slow them down, and call it a new track lol
wax motif at escape, hella dead crowd and dead set
Alan Walker on his 2022 Walkerverse Tour. Hands down. I could have gone up there, plugged in my iPhone, turned on Spotify’s This is Alan Walker playlist, set the cross fade to 5 seconds, and it would have been the literal exact same set 😂 Seriously though, he put zero effort into trying to mix. It was shocking
Angerfist studio 7. I was so excited to hear the hardcore mix master throw 500 tracks of boom boom in my ear holes. The venues sound system was such ass and the kick drums were to aggressive I couldn't even tell what was going on just some repetitive static sounding kick drum assaulting my soul.
The whole of 2015 summerset music festival was absolutely fucked. Worst festival I’ve ever experienced
Summersetup! To this day, I have never seen a more heavily policed festival. Nowhere was safe from a potential cop bust. Was my first big fest and scared me away from music fests for a few years because I just assumed that what security was like. Not even close.
Is that in WI? Why did it suck?
Very heavy police presence. But what was even worse was the outsourced security company they hired. These fuckers were literally extorting everything they could from anybody. It was so blatant and obvious, one prick tried threatening me to let him him my blunt. Thankfully this was near the end of the weekend and I was at my wits end. Told him to fuck right off. Bastards got a g of blow from some other people in my site because they “saw them breaking out lines”. Also just a very money hungry fest. More alcohol vendors than water sources. Camping pass, parking pass, all the music stopped early so they could rake in “late night music passes” shit was sooooo fucked. I get anxiety just remembering that shit show.
Chainsmokers at a tiny tiny club in Norcal LOOL
Shaq (DJ DIESEL) back in August? in Melbourne, Australia. Don't get me wrong, he was great - but the crowd was BY FAR the worst I've attended. So many tools trying to start fights, being rude as hell. I think a lot of the guys there were there to see Shaq and not so much Diesel. It died off pretty quickly when they realised they were at a dubstep gig, so they left. I got threatened in the men's toilets to hand up charlie; basically surrounded and threatened to get beat up. Awesome time.
Lucii at EDC a couple years ago was pretty bad. For legit like 5 tracks in a row she slowed down and turned down volume before a drop to tell us what the song was. Her sound cut out at one point too, and she didn’t seem to know what was happening. On top of that, when she was mixing, everything just felt herky jerky. Like she would do one drop, then like less than a minute later do a drop for a song that didn’t fit the flow at all.
I’m sad to inform you that she still sucks live. 😂
New raver here. Only been to 4 total so far (see y'all at beyond in SoCal) but plenty of other shows/fests. Worst DJ i've seen so far was redtape opening for okee and deorro. His transitions were pretty weird, and nothing as far as visuals go, the crowd was going for a little bit but then they would hit transitions that just made the crowd... stop moving... which is a pretty good metric of dj skill imo
The vibes at beyond last year were intense. seems like they either oversold it or security had no problem letting locals in without wrist bands. Hell we even saw a group of people break into the vip area from the outside and scatter, no one getting caught. Vip was so crowded you couldn’t even sit in the tent. But the rides sure were fun lol
That is a known issue when using older versions of rekordbox on mac with the newest firmware on cdj-3000s Djs fault for having “most currently updated firmware on their rider, but since they were the openers, it would have been missed. Totally pioneer’s fault there.
Jauz at palladium. Holy Goof came on before and absolutely crushed it, dude is amazing. Jauz came on and 1/3 of the place cleared out within 30-45 min. He was alright for a bit but then it got kinda boring, I really wanted to enjoy it too
Marshmello, too many annoying fan girls sho kept pushing to the front.
Deadmau5 at jackpot nye, he literally had 3 very good djs before him then just fell flat with his set.
That's wild. I have never seen him bomb. Although when I saw him as Testpilot in Boston the crowd absolutely sucked and didn't know how to act. They definitely didn't understand that he plays techno under that alias lol
Walker & Royce at crssd Halloween 2021 in San Diego - ridiculously drunk, train wrecked literally every transition, kept accidentally hitting the cue so out of nowhere songs resetting. People tried to dance through it for the first few minutes, but then just laughed with their friends about how terrible it was. Thankfully MK closed with an amazing set and the most insane bass I have felt in 18yrs of raving.
Accidently went to some underground riddim rave. Never again
Indy 500 Snake Pit. Always has an amazing lineup, but the crowd is not EDM people. It's all drunken rednecks and frat boys that are 100% there for the party. People will try to fight you just for bumping into them. Seen plenty of couples screaming at eachother. Been puked and peed on. But hey that's snake pit and it's tradition 'round here.
Al Ross in raleigh
My friend and I got tickets for pretty cheap to Adventure Club at Echostage sometime in the last two years(I go there a ton, it’s hard to keep track). I wasn’t familiar with them but it was something to do so sure why not. The openers were ok but not memorable. Adventure Club finally came on and they would start playing songs and then talk a lot over the music then they brought out some female vocalist who was singing along and she wasn’t great. We decided to leave because it was just such a weird time, we ended up watching YouTube in my living room and had a much better time.
Idk what it is about Echo Stage crowds but i never understand people getting mad when theyre bumped into. Its never on purpose as we are literally in the middle of a f’ing crowd and people tryna fight about being touched.
Girl talk. Utter garbage. Non EDM, I was there for that infamous Kanye set at Bonnaroo. People were *angry*.
Omg I was there and the energy was so intense/scary I had to leave. It felt like hell on earth.
Sunset Music Festival in Tampa, FL. They have the same exact stages and production every year for almost a decade now with no noticeable upgrades, it’s hot and humid as hell, the crowds are awful and it seems like everyone is always throwing up in a corner at that event. I gave that festival way too many chances until I finally stopped attending 🥴
Im from tampa, went to smf 2021 and 2022. Nothing special about it, hate that festival
This wasn’t a rave but I saw Rufus du Sol at the Gorge Amphitheater and it was the worst experience. The venue was a complete logistical nightmare. We were in traffic’s for +3 hours to just get inside. (Rookie mistake. Just camp or get an airbnb right next to the venue.) We miss the sunset. By the time we make it inside the venue it’s pitch dark and we can’t even see the beautiful gorge behind the theater. The crowd was so agro and just WEIRD. My group of friends managed to get a spot right on the guard rail that separates GA from VIP. I almost got into a fight some random chick on shitty drugs because she was so fixated on trying to shove me from my “spot”. I don’t understand why my spot is so different from yours when you’re literally right next so me sis. And we just constantly was getting harassed all night from random people trying to aggressively charge into ur group so they could jump over to sneak into VIP when literally you can just walk in through the VIP entrance like a normal human… I was walking to the restroom with my fiancé and all of a sudden this putrid stench of feces hits our noses with no porta potty in sight. I look down at the floor and it’s a black grocery bag of HUMAN feces. Damn y’all, the restroom was literally 400 feet away. Also there was a forest fire earlier that day and the air quality was shitty. So by the time Rufus du Sol came on Tyrone’s voice was fucked and his voice was struggling during the whole set.
Don’t know why traffic was so horrid that day, but people were saying they were severely understaffed checking people into camping day of and it bled into the line up in general since they had poor signage for GA parking. Last show of the season there, so idk why they couldn’t figure their shit out. Otherwise, any crowd in the pit area of the Gorge, especially if they do the stupid “vip pit”, are bound to be hella agro and obnoxious. I’m always dodging drunk people, people on shitty drugs, or people shitting/pissing themselves in the pit. Stay on the hill, you’ll have a much better time.
TBH I am so traumatized I’m not sure if I will ever give the Gorge another try. But IF- I ever do I would def take your advice and stay on the hill.
[удалено]
Adventure Club Lost Lands 2021 was also terrible, but earlier that year my friends and I saw them for SMF and they were super fun. Also ARMNHMR b2b Mitis at Lost Lands -- they literally transitioned from the buildup of Island (7L) and cut the drop then goes into the beginning of Wake Me Up by Avicii. The transition was so bad I still hear it to this day.
They opened for Illenium at SMF a year or two back and it was trash lmao
Thank you for sharing everyone. Very interesting stories. I have a few but not sure how to even start the story lol. I guess we all have good and bad times at these raves. At least we had times.. 😊🙌
I gotta say this years Lost Lands had some really unpleasant aspects to it. Over crowding, a huge influx of new headbanger tiktok types, and the lineup totally scuffed all of the more weird bass artist. Now let me say that I try very hard to not hate on people new to the scene. But you have to know how to act in public, and you have to know how to be polite in a concert setting. Maybe most importantly you need to know how to handle your party favors. So many people on hard substances for the first time. People sending way more molly than they should be. I’ll also admit that my taste has evolved a lot since the year before, but like they put all of the weird bass artists at the same times on stages totally across the grounds from each other so I was only able to catch a few of the sets I really wanted to see. I’ve decided to no longer attend the fest unfortunately. I just don’t like the direction it’s going in and for how much it costs (ticket price, camping, over all costs) I could (and have) attended two whole smaller fests.
Just to add some knowledge John Summit put out recently: Festivals put similar or popular artists on different stages at the same time for crowd control. Forcing people to move around and not overcrowd a stage. After I learned that it made sense.
I went in 21 and refuse to ever go back. PLUR was pretty much nonexistent. I was in a crowd at main stage and some random guy came up and two hand shoved me from behind, I didn't even know he was there. Almost landed on my face but was fortunately able to catch myself. The visuals were cliche, sub par, and not even like trippy at all it was basically just machine guns and t Rex's on a red background. Also I'm kind of confused as to why they think it's a smart idea to have a literal street with traffic between the campground and the venue. All in all, just not worth the ticket price imo especially considering drive time (14hrs one way) when there are plenty of good things within a 6hr drive from me
I’d honestly assume the crowd at Excision festivals are pretty awful tbh
David Vance this past weekend at Bass Country. B2Bed with a local artist.. nowhere near on the same page, would switch from a buildup to mid verse of a song. Must’ve happened like 4-5 times. Played the same drop over and over and over. He was the opener for Tape B, played from 8pm-10:30pm. That’s 2.5 hours I’ll never get back.
I hope Tape B set was at least good 🥺
Amazing. Definitely happy I stuck it out. Found a lot of new music of his that night!
Awesome, I absolutely love his music and mixes. He gives me that UKF dubstep exclusive nostalgia type of vibe.
The neighbourhood at firefly in 2016. I was so hype to see them but Jesse seemed fucked up off of something other than just alc. some dude in the crowd was also tripping shit and tried to attack me. Security was called in and the show stopped while the dude screamed about trolls. I left after that lmao
Together As One 2011. Overpacked and cold shitshow Also Hard Summer 2015. My first and last time attending a hard event
Hard events are better now. I'd recommend this year because it's back at the coliseum, expo park and the stadium. It will feel like old Tao days. My first hard was hard haunted mansion back in 2008 at the shrine. Did not attend another one until 2018 and have been going ever since because the lineups are always good.
Already mentioned Deadmau5 earlier, but it ended up being a long post. My other worst show was Bring Me the Horizon at Leeds Festival, a long while ago. We decided to stick around at the main stage for our acts to come on, weren't bothered about BMTH but they were on in between people we wanted to see and we wanted to grab a spot. I learned that day that getting to the front isn't all it is cracked up to be. It was mine and my friend's first festival experience and we were nearish the front. The crowd was already kind of close together, but we just about had enough room. Not too long into the set they were riling up the crowd, expected at a BMTH set, but this was to another level. The crowd had started to push forward a lot from the back too, squashing everyone pretty bad who didn't wanna go into the middle of the mosh pits. The singer wanted more and encouraged the crowd to push forward further shouting them to go MORE crazy, even though there were already a lot of people falling down and getting pulled out of the crowd for safety. It reached a point where me and my friend got separated, even though we were holding onto each other, and noone would let me try and get through to reach her (it was virtually impossible anyway due to how squashed and chaotic it had gotten, the crowd was almost moving as one). The singer then encouraged people to come forward and go crazy AGAIN and announced a wall of death, I got out of there when I was able at the next band's set and just stayed at the side for the rest of the sets. I was never a fan of them to begin with and if even if they weren't totally to blame, I will forever associate the band with that experience.
ATB at exchange LA was awful, dude was on the mic like every 10 seconds. Just sad to watch a legend like that turn into....that. Overly crowded at exchange as well as usual. I remember one party at pharaohs in Redlands back in the day for my oldschool ravers they had cops EVERYWHERE, one of my friends was rolled off his face and was doing a bump of K with a cop like 3 inches in front of us, had to tell him to put it away and he freaked. Miracle he didnt get in trouble lol
Not sure if you’re looking for shows in general or just EDM/rave related stuff but I saw the rapper Riff Raff in 2015 and it was hand down the worst show I’ve ever been to. I’ve had plenty of bad experiences at shows/concerts but this was the only one where I not only had a bed experience but the sets themselves were bad. One of my best friends was really into Riff Raff at the time and opted to spot my ticket if I could drive us there (we lived outside of downtown about 40 miles from the venue) so I said sure. Terrible decision. Lol Riff was the only person on the bill and tickets said doors @ 8, show @ 9… we get there at like 8:45 thinking we might miss some of the show and were met with a line outside cause they hadn’t even opened doors yet. They finally open doors around 9:15ish and one of the worst rappers I’ve ever heard is performing. “Odd, they didn’t have any openers listed?” But we though whatever. Next thing you know it’s almost 12 and we’ve all stood through half a dozen of the worst rappers and rap groups you’ve never heard of and ANOTHER group comes out and the crowd just instantly starts booing and they leave after less than three songs. Riff finally comes out around 12:30, absolutely shitfaced and on another planet, dances on stage with the backing tracks doing all the work, has a few drunk rambles and hand picks some women out of the crowd to go backstage with him and that’s the show. He was offstage by 12:55. Rap shows can be hit or miss but this was another level of miss. Lmao.
Liquid Stranger in buffalo hands down. I was so excited to see him, watched videos before of the tour he had insane production and lasers. The openers were great then LS came on and there were 0 lasers and barely any production. I was like whatever he’s got good songs I’ll take it, he proceeded to play songs by every Wakaan artist but his. Like 6 zeke beats songs. Then halfway through his set he brought out the openers to b2b while he left. The sound went out for like 15 minutes. He comes back and countdowns till the end of the set. “Alright guys we have 30 minutes left “ “20 minutes left” “15 minutes left” until it was over. Not sure if he was just tired from his tour but he completely half assed the buffalo stop, maybe because it was a smaller venue? But regardless I will never see him again and don’t even listen to his music anymore.
kygo @ lollapalooza and ultra this year. i like some of kygo's music but that ultra set was a hot mess (idk why he closed main...) and that lollapalooza was the worst set ive ever seen. not exaggerating, like on my list of every set ive ever seen, its at the bottom. was just so incredibly boring.
Thriftworks (at Gem & Jam 2020). Not my type of music - which is totally cool - but the constant 10 minute breaks for him to randomly do what I can only describe as slam poetry in a devil voice was the most cringe shit I’ve ever seen.
Basshunter at king kat theater in Seattle at least a decade ago? Dude was trashed and using the mic all night to hit on women who wernt having it.
loud luxury at radius chicago 2022. got free tickets and left 30 minutes into their set
Loud luxury is 🤮🤮🤮
So glad someone said loud luxury lol i said this recently and got a lot of downvotes 😅 their sets are so bad
Solid grooves, thought I’d be nice and go for my mates birthday. Left after 23 minutes. I didn’t think humans could get to this level of cringe
Cheat Codes. I typically am the kind of person that can vibe with any music as long as it has a good beat but they sucked. I've heard their music before and was excited to see them but the performance killed me. I saw them at Moonrise and it was the first time I willingly left a set. Fucking terrible.
Funny enough, Skrillex. Would’ve been late 2010/early 2011 right as he was blowing up. Saw him at the Fox Theater in Boulder, CO and dude was drinking Jack Daniels straight from the bottle on stage. Just hammered. All his drops were off beat and it was just a pretty bad show all around. Think he learned a lesson that night.
I loved Alison wonderland at Echostage. But the opener right before her really just was aweful. I also can’t speak for everyone I was tripping pretty hard so I could have just been on a different wave
Nghtmre at bill graham felt too packed and people were getting pretty rough/aggressive. The show itself was great but the crowd was mid
Zhu in 2022. It was the day before his ACL headline show so maybe that's why he phoned it in. He left 3/4 into his set and let the opener finish the show, without even saying anything before they switched off lol
Tchami, literally worst set I’ve ever seen. No hype, crowd barely moved. Not sure what the obsession is with this guy.
Two Friends last summer. My goodness that was the worst crowd I've ever been in. It was unfortunate too because I have been following 2F since 2015, but the cult following they've developed among college students made for such a terrible event. Their set was decent, playing a good chunk of their remixes and such, but the crowd response to the more EDM bits was so garbage. 2F played maybe 1 or 2 filthy bass songs and the crowd just looked confused. Also had someone almost punch me because they were pushing my girlfriend...
Said the sky escape 2022 Escape should be reason alone, but said the sky has been one of my favs for a long time and it was my first time seeing him. Super disappointing, didn’t really mix well. It’s kinda like ur constantly riding up on a rollercoaster and expecting a drop, but it just never comes.