Come one, come all: the Electric Zoo music festival, a celebration of the genre formerly known as "techno," Electronica. The former was probably always an overgeneralized, blase term anyway, but I think it would be safe to say at this point that "techno" has been reduced to an uneducated and possibly condescending appellation for a style that has truly become more than a mere hypersexed niche of fist-pumping guidoism. That's not to say that the crowd assembled at this effective tri-stage outdoor rave on Randall's Island seemed interested in any consideration of the music beyond that which is required for the most primitive of dancelike bodily movements. Circa 6 PM on Saturday afternoon, amidst the muddy cocktail of pulsating bass that hung in the air, one look around the place revealed a raw and ragged picture of guiltless hedonism. Cigarettes hung from the mouths of sweaty, emaciated faces, which adorned every color and style of sunglasses to be popular within the last 25 years, and whoops and hollers and other nonsensical ululations rang out as the music would reach one of the climactic buildups that are so characteristic of electronic music.
It was an experience to say the least. I didn't really know what to expect, going into it, and that's probably why I decided to go. After the perfunctory milling about inside the entrance, our group made its way over towards the second-largest of stages. It was hot and messy and everyone inside was pretty spaced out but enjoying the music. We made our way to the heart of the thing and began bouncing and grooving with the music. The performer was up on the stage amongst a stack of equipment and a tangle of wires, furiously intent on manipulating whatever buttons and switches were splayed out in front of him to exact the most body-pumping sonic sensations on the engrossed crowd. After a series of electronic whirrs and crunches, the sounds quickly evolved into a new rhythm. Some sort of continuous synth-bass infiltrated every nook and cranny of my sensory awareness and I was helpless but to bob my frame up and down in sync with the fascinating noise. Looking around, most of the other concertgoers appeared to be similarly affected -- and of course others were still just sort of spaced out and hanging around -- but either way, it was pretty effing cool stuff.
After a bit of the standard festival lollygagging and much-needed hydration (the water/gatorade lines were longer than the beer lines by about sixfold), we found ourselves at the main stage. This marvel of modern visual sensationalism was equipped with all sorts of nifty lights and LCD screens blasting the illest of abstract lines and shapes, and occasionally, when the situation warranted, the nodding likeness of a grinning dead rodent. I'm serious -- for those of you who are down with this electronic music shiz, you probably know this to be none other than the calling card of Deadmau5 (pronounced "ded mouse"). To uproarious cheers, what I could only assume to be a twenty-something man wearing an opaque, spherical, red mouse-helmet with enormous ears emerged onto the stage. With a few fluid hand motions across the equipment in front of him a cycle of pacman-era tones began. The man-mouse deftly whisked more and more sounds into the cycle, until the whole thing could no longer contain itself, and erupted into a glorious beat with those backwards-sucking kick drums and that electronic venom for which the wild-eyed crowd hungered so.
"This is pure hedonism, and I love it!" exclaimed one of our group members at one point. We were dancing around a pole supporting the tent above the smallest of the three stages in a murky half-light of greenish blue. After having experienced this stuff for upwards of 7 hours, I still couldn't tell any difference between one song and the next, but I realized that wasn't the point. It was complete hedonism, a reckless orgy of youthful disregard, and promised nothing else. Was that anything new? As we walked back into Manhattan across the Triborough Bridge I caught a great view of the shimmering skyline reflecting in the East River. The reflection of the headlights of cars flying up the FDR Drive reminded me that the rest of New York City was going about its business as usual.
i love it.
ReplyDelete