It's bad enough trying to choose sets at a regular music festival: choosing between acts you love, deciding how far you're willing to walk to catch the act on the other side of the festival ground, deciding when you're going to take a break and eat. Electronic dance music festivals make it oh so much harder. As most performers don't need gaps between sets to make sure guitars are tuned properly and such, as soon as one set ends another begins.
Electric Zoo, which will happen over Labor Day weekend in New York City, is just one example. Starting at 1 PM on August 29, DJ's will begin dropping beats and the music won't let up for ten hours. As usual—in fact even more so than usual—concertgoers will need to have a plan if they plan on catching all their favorite acts.
Odds are you already know who you want to see but Music Times has taken some of the hottest set times from the three-day festival and weighed in, just in case. If you're in need of guidance consider our options:
FRIDAY
David Guetta (Main Stage West) vs. Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike (Main Stage East)
David Guetta and Calvin Harris are the highest-earning DJ's in the world for a reason: They make music that everyone, not just EDM enthusiasts, knows. If this is your first time at a huge EDM event, there will definitely be more music you know at Guetta's set, such as his hit "Titanium." However the mainstream popularity he enjoys comes largely thanks to lyrics versus instrumental experimentation. You can dance to this sort of pop house but there's no way it'll be as interesting as the electro rave going on at Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike's establishment. Will the pair be totally underground? No, but off-the-wall sampling like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" will keep you on your toes, physically and mentally.
A-Trak (Main Stage West) vs. Jamie xx (Beatport Riverside)
The overlap between these two acts isn't that great...only 20 minutes in fact. But they'll be playing on opposite sides of the Electric Zoo so trying to split between them will do more harm than good. So what are the options? On one hand, we love A-Trak for his skills as an old-school DJ, incorporating plenty of scratching into his sets. On the other hand Jamie xx is one of several great minds behind The xx, so you know whatever he does will be a breath of fresh air in a scene that, apologies, has many a poser. Ultimately we're going to opt for A-Trak in this case, largely because he follows Carnage on the schedule and we'd rather move less.
SATURDAY
Armin van Buuren (Main Stage West) vs. Knife Party (Main Stage West)
An EDM festival is the last place you go if you're expecting the best act to be the headliner at the end of the night. Still, if we had to choose one big name to check out over the Electric Zoo weekend, it would definitely be van Buuren. This is a key example of knowing what you want and going for it, so we'll always take the trance maven over a house maven when it comes to live sets. Sorry to Knife Party but we're opting for trance-over-electro on this one.
Zedd (Main Stage West) vs. Laidback Luke (Main Stage East)
This is definitely the biggest toss-up on this list. At least most of the other sets have performers that operate in different styles than their respective competition but both Zedd and Laidback Luke lean heavily on electro house. Our prediction is that most of the festival's younger, more mainstream listeners will head to Zedd while the more ingrained electronic music-heads will opt for Luke. We're highly doubtful that this would happen but Ariana Grande has nothing on her schedule for next weekend and her song "Break Free" (featuring Zedd) is no. 4 on the download charts right now. Guest appearance?
SUNDAY
Kaskade (Main Stage West) vs. Jack U (Main Stage East)
Kaskade is one of the biggest names in American EDM and Jack U doesn't seem to even be ranked on DJMag.com. Easy choice right? Probably not. The latter is the alias of Diplo and Skrillex coming together as one act. It's tough to name many DJ's with as much personality as either member in that pairing so we're willing to bet heavy on it being a blast. Granted, Jack U's set is only scheduled for a little more than an hour, compared to Kaskade's 1.5 hour run, so do with that what you will. And you don't have work Monday (hopefully) so you can afford to stay out late if you want to meander on over to Kaskade before leaving Randall's Island.
Alesso (Main Stage West) vs. Dash Berlin (Main Stage East)
Remember what we said way back when, that we'd always take a trance act live versus a house act? Well we changed our minds. Alesso is a DJ who truly puts the "progressive" in "progressive house" and we expect him to bring down the house live. That being said, we're feeling a little biased after trending toward trance throughout the weekend, so perhaps Dash Berlin is getting a raw deal. He's a more than competent trance DJ, so if that's your thing, by all means.
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