Elements Lakewood just set the bar for the whole summer. Everything about the inaugural fest was on point. The venue, music, stage production, art, games, workshops, fireworks, even the roller disco rink and pirate ship, and still so much more managed to mesh together into a perfect weekend of fun filled vibes from each early morning to the next sunrise. It was truly the summer camp one dreams of with endless activities and the best in both house and bass music bumping all weekend.
This past weekend’s festivities have left us in such awe, that we decided it’s best to break down our favorite aspects of the fest into different segments. This article focuses on the music.
Here are our top 5 sets of the fest:
- Deez B2B Smigonaut
Yung guns Deez and Smigonaut kicked off the Earth stage on Sunday with a bang. Going back to back dropping psychedelic sub frequencies, the two had the crowd going wild in the early afternoon. Everyone likes a day rager for Church. Huge crowd reactions came after the duo dropped Tsimba and Mindset’s “Steady Creepin’.” We managed to snag a quick clip of that while perched up on a massive climbing net!
- Wax Future
The funk-tronic trio absolutely smashed the main stage Sunday right after Deez and Smigonaut. It was still early in the day but that didn’t stop anyone from having a lil funk party. Guitarist Keith Wadsworth hammered through solos belting out crunchy metal riffs while producer/dj Connor Hansel set the tone and conducted the vibes. Video maestro Jamal Rab moved through psychedelic landscapes of waterfalls and sunsets into old skate footage and a variety of other daily city life clips. Together, the 3 of them bring you a visual audio tour into their creativity, which happens to be pretty damn funky. Stay on the lookout for some new Wax in your Future, because their unreleased tracks are sounding tight!!
- Dave Tipper
On Saturday night Ott masterfully prepared us for lift off before Tipper at the Earth stage. transmitting tranquility through melody and bass, he delivered a dynamic and spiritually centering performance to the growing crowd. Tipper channeled these vibes, starting with lush downtempo set to visual projections by Datagrama.TV of galaxies and nebulas shimmering behind him. Extreme scratching abilities on display, Dave gave us an auditory deep brain stimulation with meditative focus. His set was a true journey and ramped up gradually from ambient into the full uptempo insanity that makes bassheads lose their pants and elevate their consciousness. Bathing us in beautiful flowing downtempo with fireworks in the distance, Dave began with a possibly unreleased track (please link us if you know!) mixed seamlessly into “Ambergris”. It was a magical opening and set the stage for serious sonic mind bending. The live visuals by Datagrama.TV were just as mesmerizing. Ebbing and flowing to the beat, his stunning art sucked the crowd ever further into the set. As it got heavier everyone got down together to gut busting newer favorites such as “Its Like” as well as older gems like “Tiny Face”. Refreshed and made whole by such an awesome experience we all stood dumbfounded at the end and thanked Dave from the bottom of our hearts. We can’t wait for the next east coast show announcement!!!
- Yheti
To quote Liquid Stranger, Yheti is “free form bass with no compromises”, and he lived up to this completely at Elements. Yheti threw down a cosmic array of space bass music, starting deep and dubby moving into complex break beats and glitched kicks. The crowd was possibly most hype for this set out of the whole weekend. Yheti dropped a bunch of unreleased tunes including one using bits of Mt. Analogue’s mouth sample pack. “My whole crew come in like that!” He closed his set with some vibed out melodies and returned everyone back to Earth safely.
- Claude Vonstroke and all the DirtyBird Players
Dirtybird boss man Claude Vonstroke threw down some serious heat over on the fire stage. Directly following Tipper’s set, the head bird knew he had to keep it weird. Dropping an arsenal of unreleased tracks, he kept the dance floor stomping throughout the night. Of course he had a little help from fellow Dirtybirds, Justin Jay, Walker & Royce, and Billy Kenny. They kept the stage hot all day long and created a safe haven for house music lovers. Billy’s set got especially heated when he took us into a DnB frenzy for the last 10min, which was followed up by the deep vibrations of Justin Jay’s FX mic. He used his microphone as a vocoder and altered his voice to sound like a bass heavy robot voice. It was creative and added a really cool live aspect to what would have been a typical DJ set. Of course he opened his set with his classic Dirtybird track “Hit It” too, and even had Billy Kenny chime in on the vocals. To say the least, the fire stage was lit on Saturday.
For a first year camping fest, the BangOn! crew blew it out of the park and once and proved they are the party king. Lakewood was beautiful, the people were beautiful, the vibes were beautiful, we’ll be back next year!
P.S. Just like 3 or 4 more shuttles would be nice though ;)
Check CYM’s Elements Lakewood [Day 2+3] Facebook Album for more pictures from the weekend.
Article by Kyle Miller & Jackson Rogow
Photos/Video by Kyle Miller (The Saucy Monster)
