Category Archives: Spring Awakening

Chicago NYE and 2013 Preview

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We’re only one week into the New Year; people have had just about enough time to recover from their Chicago New Years Eve festivities and right off the bat we get bombarded with big news announcements and plans for this year’s summer festival schedule. I’ll get to all that in a second, but first let’s look back at some of the more EDM focused events Chicago hosted while ringing in 2013.

Vision or The Castle had Mr Paul Oakenfold for the evening. This just shows that some of the more “original” popular EDM DJs (I include ATB and Tiesto in that list) still got it. If you need any convincing try to remember his set at North Coast last year. He showed he can still compete with today stoop talent, though trance has taken a back burner to Dubstep and Trap.

Congress Theater was packed for New Years Eve and the day before having Hardwell and Deniz Koyu on Sunday while The M Machine ,Mat Zo and Porter Robinson rung in the New Year with 4500+ ragers going crazy. This was probably the youngest of all the events as most catered to a more dressed up older audience. But it’s good to see the kids had somewhere to party as well.

Big Gigantic played with Griz at The Aragon ballroom for his second New Years Eve in a row in Chicago. Big Gigantic brings something different to the EDM scene, as they blend saxophone with percussion performance with and electronic twist. Griz can be best compared to Pretty Lights. If you haven’t checked either of them out you definitely should. They were fun to watch at electric forest last year.

The Hilton Chicago had its new year’s celebration hosted by Playboy Playmates while Mike Posner and Chicago’s very own Bad Boy Bill performed.  The night also included a dinner. This event was more of a dress up even but WhySoChi did have some friends who attended and said they had a blast.

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But enough about 2012 time to take a quick look at 2013. Today 1/9/2013 tickets go on sale at NOON for EDC Las Vegas 2013! Follow this LINK to the EDC website to get your tickets. If you are like me you might consider skipping buying tickets as EDC has been confirmed for a Chicago debut this year. So far no lineup has been release but rumors have spread that it will be located at a racetrack and that Memorial Day weekend is the target date. But stay tuned because Pasquale Rotella, the owner of Insomniac Events who throw EDC has announced that on January 16 more details of EDC Chicago will be released.

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We also posted a picture on our facebook page late last night what seems to be a document showing that the city of Miami is trying to stop Ultra Music Festival in March to last two weekends. This year is the first year Ultra has been split for two weekends and allegedly the authorities want to keep it just to one. More specifically week two would potentially be cancelled. I guess well have to see what happens, this could also be hoax.

541998_373169849446334_1960559246_nWe also posted a picture we found out and about on the town showing a nice little preview of what to expect from this years Spring Awakening music festival. Form what we can tell in the picture (to your left) we can see that Calvin Harris fans and Bassnectar bass-heads will be in attendance this year. Just a few weeks after EDC Chicago.

That’s all I have for now, thanks for reading we do appreciate it. Be sure to “like” us on facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Spring Awakening 2012

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Originally posted on Undercover Clubber on Tuesday September 18, 2012

Experienced on 6-16-2012 and 6-17-2012

If you were in Chicago and you like EDM and you didn’t attend the first Spring Awakening Music Festival you should be disappointed in yourself. Everyone I had a chance to see, from the lesser known names to the headliners was on point and delivered a great show. This doesn’t come without some criticism, which I’ll get to in a second.

First I want star off by giving a lot credit to the staff at React Presents, Congress Theater and the entire staff working the whole weekend for making it run really smooth.  After Saturday I saw a lot of people complaining on facebook and twitter about how they weren’t allowed to bring in empty water containers, camel backpacks and such, to which I say there were plenty of water fountains in or around the stadium and cooling stations. So if you bought one water for $4.50 or $4.75 whatever it was you could refill it  for free. I see no problem with that, when you see any type of festival like this obviously the organizers are going to try to make as much money as possible. The DJ s that performed probably cost a lot of money to book, and that price gets passed on to the consumer. But I do have a problem paying $8.50 for a bud light, even though I drank a bunch of those anyway, given the limited choice. Though I made it to the festival at 5:00 pm on Saturday and 4:00 pm on Sunday I still think I got more than my money’s worth in terms of music. Given the heat wave that weekend I give props to anyone who attended both days fully.

On day one I fell in love with Morgan Page, while Benny Benassi was ridiculous at the main stage and Skrillex absolutely stole the show to close out day 1. No one seemed to mind when it started to drizzle and then pour especially when Skrillex said “It’s the rain dance Chicago!!!” causing everyone to go nuts. The rain chopped up his laser show making each beam look like a million little bright dots. After the show ended and everyone’s energy levels came back down to earth, the long walk from the stadium back to the city in an attempt to hail a cab in the rain was not only impossible but also torture. As thousands of other soaked party goers were trying to do the same.

On Day two I finally got to see Nervo who I missed during the MiD‘s 1 year anniversary week. They were awesome, Felix Cartal was great, Datsik satisfied as always, Flux Pavilion  (Base Cannon was especially sick) rocked the main stage and so did Derick Carter and Carl Cox from what my buddy told me. Later in the evening I had to decide between Wolfgang Gartner and Laidback Luke, so I decided to see half of Wolfgang and half of Luke, only to be disappointed for leaving Wolfang’s amazing set. Laidback Luke at least finished it off right with his collaboration song with Chuckie “1 2 3 4”. Unfortunately Afrojack let me down but maybe I was setting myself up for failure after watching his Ultra 2012 set live in my friends living room (same time I bought my Spring Awakening tickets) and expecting the same sort of set. I personally didn’t like that he mixed in Beyonce and Pitbull songs because this was not the B-Bash. This time around the walk back to the car was a lot more enjoyable as the weather was perfect on Sunday night and this beautiful city of ours just looked fabulous.

Thank you everyone who made it out to make this amazing festival a success, thank you to the new friends I made and thank you Soldier Field for setting the stage for something very memorable, I’m pretty sure I’ll be seeing everyone next year when this is even bigger and better .