There Will Be HARD! Festival Review
by Uncle Flex
8/8/12
Things got HARD last weekend in downtown LA. In fact, it was so hard that a bunch of kandi kids and EDM connoisseurs alike flocked to LA Historic Park in order to catch a slew of DJs from all over the globe lay it down for two action packed nights.
HARD Events, founded by Gary Richards, aka Destructo, has been going big since their inaugural LA show held in 2007. Since then, HARD has branched out, doing Halloween shows, NYC shows, national tours with the guys from Bromance Rec, and even orchestrating the chaos known as Holy Ship!, which is easily one of the best ideas ever conceived by man (it beats out penicillin in my book).
So, the event!
First of all, the lineup was fantastic. There was a great deal of diversity, especially from the kind of stuff you see at raves. All in all, I would say there was a great deal more house music and far less big room. Some of the sets I saw over the two nights included Fake Blood, A-Trak, Miike Snow, Boys Noize, Breakbot, Bloody Beetroots, Brodinski and little bits of others here and there. That being said, Gesaffelstein was easily my favorite.
While almost everyone I saw was good, Gesaffelstein was a perfect blend of established music and rave tricks. His music is a mix of hard, dark techno, and at times slow, grinding rock n roll. Toward the end of the show he dropped his one of his newest tracks, "Belgium," and the shit hit the fan, but in that good way. The hardness was increased tenfold and the set was ended in a metal fashion that would give Justice’s Metallica finale a run for its money. All in all, it was a fantastic set, and I know I got a few looks for geeking out as hard as I did. This was the set I was looking forward to the most and it certainly delivered. Take a look at the opening here below.
Like I said, the other acts were good. Breakbot brought the French touch, playing hits like Penelope Pitstop, while still managing to drop gansta beats. A-Trak spun his hits, delivering PERFECT scratches on Stingray (listen to any Fool’s Gold Radio intro and you know what I’m talking about) while still tricking everybody in the tent with the big trap drops on tracks like Heads Will Roll and other remixes of his. Boys Noize played the new single off of his upcoming album (check it out on bitcandy’s latest best of electro post) Bloody Beetroots did what they do: make everybody jump. While Miike Snow was a great change up from everything else that was going on.
While overall the event was great, there are a few widely spoken criticisms, the biggest being that Hard doesn’t seem to know quite what it is: it’s not really a rave but it has too much of a rave following to just be a concert. From what I understand, it is purposely designed this way, and maybe that’s for the better: it’s more about the music than the scene, it’s just such a mixed crowd that it feels a little funny at times. Next up is crazy beer prices (which they completely stopped selling at midnight. WHAT THE FUCK?!?!), no hard alcohol, and not to mention not being allowed to buy my girlfriend a beer even though she was directly to my left... Rules for rules sake never make anything better... Except for the two rules played over loudspeaker at the entrance which stated "No photos of Tom Cruise and absolutely no Paris Hilton allowed at this event."
That being said, nothing can be perfect, and I give HARD Summer two big thumbs up. I am really looking forward to the Halloween event, featuring Justice, Knife Party, and Major Lazer.
Until next time, stay classy.
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