Sound Wave Music Festival: Official Recap

October 16, 2012 By 802 Comments

After a quick two hour drive up from the University of Arizona to Tempe, AZ, we were lucky enough to cover Soundwave Music Festival, brought to us from none other than Steve LeVine Entertainment & Public Relations (SLE). Our night began around 9pm, and the first performer we saw was young electro prodigy, Felix Cartal. Felix took the Red Bull stage by storm and began playing some of trippiest, catchiest, and most groovy electro I’ve heard in quite some time. At this particular stage, Red Bull had set up mirrors above the decks, showing the crowd the hands of the DJ. I was blown away at his mixing skills at such a young age, and was very grateful for the unique opportunity to truly spy on the actions of the current performer. Further into his set, Felix began dropping some heavy electro house. One significantly celebrated track was Botnek’s remix to ‘Tonight’, which features high pitch female vocals and one hell of a drop.

Then we began our mission over towards the main stage where some up and coming Dubstep talent was taking over the increasingly growing crowd. Texas native, Crizzly, is known for his heavy bass and and slow tempo that has the power to not only captivate the audience, but to overwhelm them as well. His set featured newer releases from big names the likes of Diplo, Datsik, Skrillex, and even fellow Soundwave artists, Seven Lions. Though the entire set had the crowd roaring from start to finish, a high point had to have been when Crizzly dropped his remix of “Snap Back Swag”.

The onslaught of bass-heavy tunes continued on at the main stage following Crizzly as the up-and-coming duo, Adventure Club, took center stage. It felt as if Adventure Club was well aware of the high-caliber set that they would be following, so they knew they had to bring the heat. This meant them diverging from a strictly Dubstep-influenced set as they played some Electro-House, Moombahton, and a healthy serving of the exploding underground movement, Trap. Trap music cannot be truly heard until done so in a live, big-room setting; just like the one Big Surf Waterpark had packed with local party goers. Two of the more notable tracks came towards the end of their set – Skrillex’s ‘Goin Down Mix’ of Birdy Nam Nam’s “Goin In” and RL Grime’s almighty “Mercy” remix. The crowd was already lost in the night, but it had only just begun.

After such an energetic set, we hit the bar and returned to the main stage once again for chainsaw savage, R3hab. The production for R3hab’s set was extremely enjoyable and he seemed to be having a blast. NOS cannons blasted into the crowd on some of his harder tracks, and were backed with bright visuals and very deep bass. As expected, his electro house remixes to poppier, more mainstream tracks absolutely blew up the crowd. During the middle of his set, the crowd began to chant, and R3hab reacted perfectly by cutting the music in order to hear the eminent excitement. As much fun as we were having, it was getting close to seeing our final set for the night.

R3hab concluded with a bang, and on stage came Scottish legend, Calvin Harris. The energy in the crowd surpassed anything we had seen that night, and the entire main stage began chanting his name. Let me just say: Calvin absolutely killed it. From euphoric, progressive house to deep electro, Calvin’s tracklist couldn’t have provoked better reactions. A few of the most exciting drops were Axwell’s remix to ‘In My Mind’ and Calvin’s very own collaboration with Nicky Romero, ‘Iron’. Towards the end of the set, a large quantity of massive balloons began flooding the crowd and caused a great deal of excitement and uniting euphoria. Everyone was having a blast. At the very end, R3hab came back on stage and began to feed the crowd endless Patron shots. Let’s just say it was a great Saturday night.

Photos By: RJ Slu and Keenan Turner of MDK Media

Written by: Jake Glazer & Gabe Stansbury


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