Before the dawn of the DOD, we blindly bought some tickets for Spring Awakening in Chicago for a weekend getaway with friends. This happened to be its second iteration at Chicago’s iconic Soldier Field, and was a truly epic weekend, ending in the middle of an almost-Houston level rainstorm during Skrillex’s set, which still replays in slow motion in our heads.
It’s amazing to see how festivals like this have grown. Spring Awakening tacked on an extra day a couple of years after we went, and moved to Addams/Medill park instead of Soldier Field, due to this year’s Copa Americana. The stages grew from simpler (but by no means meager) screens above and below the DJs, to gigantic 3-D stages, even on the smaller of the five stages. Not that it at ALL felt like an amateur production before, but this was now a polished, top tier festival to go to bat with the heavy hitters. These stages evolved from eye candy to mind blowing.
Even though we loved it at Soldier Field, Addams/Medill park was incredibly easy to navigate. You could pop from one stage to the next in as little as two minutes, and the big stages in about five. There was some serious noise bleed in the common areas though, which made chill time nearly impossible.
One of the awesome things about this show was the age restriction. Summer fest is great for kids, as it’s a nice way for them to experience several different genres of music all at once. This festival was welcome with its more adult atmosphere. Sure, there were still people that couldn’t hold their whatever, but they weren’t 15 and drinking for the first time. We didn’t feel like we’d accidentally crashed a 13-year-old’s kegger when their parents were out of town.
Day one was a bit of a brutal day for us, and ended up being the weakest of the three days — the one that we would not have cared to repeat if it weren’t for Deadmau5 and Jamie XX. The heat was kissing the mid-90s, the sun was harsh, and the air totally devoid of humidity, despite protests from the natives. We felt like someone just took a straw to us and sucked out all of our moisture out of our bodies, like some sort of weather witchcraft. The advertised free water stations has lines nearly a hundred people long, so we were forced to buy water to fill our bottles, unless we wait an hour. These lines stayed ridiculous until the sun went down, when it dropped to an awesome low 80-something. We know that there was no way the organizers could have anticipated the heat, and we were thankful for the security at the front of every show sharing their water with us. We were just a little peeved that we blew our drink budget on ones with zero kick.
Day one was spent getting a feel for the venue during the daytime. We arrived at the tail end of Troyboi, acquired drinks and did a couple of laps before settling at Gramatik. We hung out for about 30 minutes before we went off to catch the other half of Borgore. After, we simply wandered for an hour in the odd, noise bleed area in between all the stages. We simply didn’t find something that was calling us enough to sweat even more than we were.
Next stop was Jamie XX, who we caught the week before at FPSF. He was our pleasant surprise of last weekend, and he didn’t disappoint this time, although his set was similar. We couldn’t see if he was spinning vinyl this time due to the set up, but we didn’t care. We just danced.
Last show of the night was the legendary Deadmau5. Again, we caught him the week before, and his set was incredibly similar, which is totally understandable for someone that plays his own music (it’s great for a sing along, but it leaves a little off the variety if you catch them back to back. Still! We weren’t complaining). We were so close (but off to the side) that we barely caught any of the visuals on the enormous stage set up, but still danced until our feet were throbbing.
After one of our fest mates had the revelation that waiting until the set was over would probably send our Uber rate through the roof, we hailed a car and headed out with about 5 minutes of his set to spare. On the way out, we passed a very-colorful Steve Aoki hopping around on stage to a few thousand screaming in the audience. It looked pretty impressive on the stage, but not enough to make us want to stay and have to battle to the car.
Day two was simply amazing with a solid lineup the entire time. After a late start and partial reluctance to get wiped out by the heat, we made it in time to catch half of John O’Callaghan’s set. This was beautiful bangin’ trance in his typical style, and we went from zero to 500 energy in about 2 seconds in the crowd. As his set wrapped, we headed over to Simian Mobile Disco and caught a few minutes of their set from the sidelines as we re-upped drinks. Then we caught the opening of Aly & Fila, until we realized that it was time for Nicole Moudaber and headed to the Birdhouse Stage. Did we mention the day was about tough choices? Thankfully these stages, the bathroom, and the drink stand were all a 2-minute walk from one another.
Oh Nicole. We love you so. In a day of insane quality talent, you were still the highlight of the day. One of our companions had never seen or heard any of your mixes or productions, and he just couldn’t stop talking about your set for the weeks after. This was a set of beautiful, dark techno, and a bassline that crawled in your soul. For us, this was the best we’d ever seen you, and that is saying a heck of a lot!
After Nicole Moudaber, we stayed exactly where we were for Claude Vonstroke. Why would we leave anyway? Sure, there were solid acts elsewhere (ATB, Zeds Dead, and Kaskade were all playing at the same time), but we’d never seen him before. This was another set to bring the sweat, the funk, and the hordes of people wearing Dirtybird hats. It was a great programming move to have him end out the day, as he lightening things up a bit from the more serious day of trance and techno. Saturday was the day where we simply couldn’t stop dancing, and he was the perfect way to end it.
Day three was another amazingly solid, and thankfully much cooler day. We started out with grown child-prodigy Madeon, who was just as bubbly on stage as the previous time we’d seen him. However, this was a jam-packed day, and settling in one spot this early on would have done us a disservice. We stuck around for about three tracks, and then hung out at Dada Life as we finished drink #1. We passed Madeon again for one more track, but headed off to catch the last bit of Moon Boot’s set at the All Gone Pete Tong stage.
Next up was the man himself, Pete Tong. We’ve been dying to see him ever since we first heard his name (yes, before the movie even — we’ve been listening to Radio 1) and were not let down. Our new friends around us shared the sentiment, and packed the stage to the brim with writhing bodies. At one point, we wandered off to get a drink, and caught a few minutes of the also packed DJ Mag Stage as Chuckie dropped some Rick Ross. We went back to Pete Tong, and finished out the set, and worked our way closer to the front for Green Velvet.
Yes, we love Green Velvet. Yes, it was an amazing set. Yes, he played all of his hits too (Bigger than Prince!, Flash!, Laser Beams!), but managed to make it fresh and interesting, as he does every other time. OTHER DJ/Producers TAKE NOTE. Of course, we took total guilty pleasure with anyone that drop Chuck Robert’s preaching “My House” into their set, too. Sadly (and to many protests at first), we missed the ending because Above and Beyond were going to close out the night at the gargantuan DJ Stage, and we wanted to get up close. We love you, Green Velvet!
We got almost a little TOO close to Above and Beyond’s stage, but we still had an amazing spot in the sea of people. What soon followed was one of the best multimedia shows we’d ever seen. A&B was flawless, the sound was flawless, the use of the creatively laid out stage was artful and unique, and the crowd was so into everything that you couldn’t help but we lifted up by the incredible vibe. Nicole Moudaber stole the show the day before, but Sunday belonged to Above and Beyond. Yes, they played mostly tracks from “Tri State” and “We Are All We Need” instead of the regular “Group Therapy” format, but we didn’t care. We came to be blown away and we simply were. Early that morning, the tragedy at Pulse nightclub happened, so the audience held hands and overcame the hate with love during a prompted tribute by A&B. Above and Beyond was the icing on the weekend’s very tasty cake — not too sweet, not artificial, just real love that radiated throughout the field.
Sadly, again, we had to leave a bit early, as there were about 50,000 other people that were poised to leave the festival the same time that we were. We left our amazing spot at Above and Beyond, and headed toward the exit. However, we did get drawn over to Maya Jane Coles, who was closing out the All Gone Pete Tong stage. Unfortunately, we stuck around slightly too long (hey, she was amazing!), and had to wait out at a taqueria while the crowds died down.
As we grabbed our sack of tacos and walked into the night, we reveled in the afterglow of the best music event we’ve been to since ADE last year. YEAH WE SAID IT, this festival blew everything we’d been to for the last eight months out of the water. Maybe it was the glitz of dancing under the iconic Chicago skyline in a carnival atmosphere, complete with ferris wheels, water slides, and free coconut water galore. Maybe it was just the fact that this was a quality festival, that was run like a well-oiled machine, despite its small faults. There was no horrible lines for food, entry, or the bathrooms. The drinks were quality priced, and even the paid bottled waters were reasonable. If you are looking for a stateside festival without the stigma of Ultra or EDC, this is your festival.
PROS
Extreme quality talent, atmosphere, no Houston swampiness, general friendliness of fellow concert goers, craft beer, inventive stage lighting and visuals, themed/branded stages, general sound quality, quality tacos nearby, cell phone pay accepted, quick entry, surprising ability to be able to send texts or tweets.
CONS
Hour-long lines for free water, extreme noise bleed in between stages, no spray sunscreen or refillable vapes allowed inside (gripe from fellow concert goer), zero parking, very full port-o-potties at end of day.
Rating: A
On a bit of a side note, crap-tons of folks jumped the fence for this event, to the point where it was simply amusing. In the entry line on day one, six guys jumped the fence and ran off into the crowds. The security just stood there and blinked, as they by the time they realized what had happened, there was no catching them. On our last day as well, as we were taking a pee break before Green Velvet, over a dozen people jumped the fence in one group. About five of them were caught, and real police with what we can only assume were drug dogs started patrolling to catch them (this was on the same day as the Pulse massacre, so the heightened measures were totally legit), but the majority of them were not found.
Journalist/blogger since 2009 and music lover since 1980. Bex now travels the world and writes and takes photos of dance events, creates art in various media, sings quietly to her cat in the shower, and occasionally builds something that tends to involve a blowtorch. She can usually be seen hiding behind some sort of camera rig.
