The Southland’s biggest live music Halloween party took place Saturday and Sunday, November 1 and 2, moving this year to the Fairplex in Pomona. The Hard Day of The Dead is one of the largest EDM festivals in the country, featuring some of the biggest names in Electronic music playing on five stages over the span of two full days and nights. The unique gathering not only celebrates EDM culture in all of its youthful excesses, but combines the spirit and costuming of Halloween, with the traditional Mexican Day of The Dead celebration. The result is a myriad costume party with plenty of sexual innuendo thrown in for good measure. Last year’s event drew tens of thousands of costumed music fans to Los Angeles Downtown Historic park. The festival, now in its third year attracted the biggest crowds yet, with an estimated 40,000 people a day descending on the Fairplex in Pomona, including many Southern California celebrities like Katy Perry and Sarah Hyland from Modern Family fame.
The two day festival featured a truly international line up of some of the EDM’s biggest stars. Luckily, the first major rainstorm of the season in Southern California, had passed through by the time the festival began on Saturday morning. The brief deluge the night before had wiped out many outdoor Halloween parties across the region. The festival under cool and breezy, but bright and sunny skies kicked off the first day with some of the biggest acts in EDM, like Pretty Lights. Knife Party, and Deadmau5 with Eric Prydz. Throngs of creatively costumed and/or scantily clad music fans spread out across the massive venue that featured five stages. The event ran like clockwork, with nearly every set on time and very little down time between performers. The event featured a carnival like atmosphere, with plenty of food and drink options scattered about a park like setting with lots of seating and chill spots. An array of real restrooms was a big step up from last year’s long lines at the portable toilets.
Day two of the festival may have featured the more musically superior line up with a more diverse mix of veteran acts from across the globe. Veteran European DJ Pete Tong made a historic first appearance at the festival. In addition to well known local mixmasters like RL Grime and Valentino Kahn, a small army of International acts played inspiring sets throughout the day and night. Vancouver’s Felix Cartal played an energetic set and French dance trance master Tchami played the main stage. The massive main Hard Stage, always a multimedia technical wonder was transformed into a Mayan Pyramid for this year’s event. Polish duo Catz N Dogz brought an Eastern European flair to their dance mix set. The energy in the crowd around the MainStage reached a frenzied pace in late afternoon when the Colorado, duo Big Gigantic took the stage. Saxophonist/producer Dominic Lalli and drummer Jeremy Salken, brought a whole new dimension to their dance trance set, with live music elements, blending EDM, with rock, funk, and dare I say jazz, into the mix.
Over on the Pink stage DJ Cashmere was bringing a distinctive Chicago house sound to an appreciative crowd, while DJ Destructo was taking over the main stage. While Big Gigantic may have been a tough act to follow, this West Coast DJ, who helped organize the festival was up to the challenge. Near the end of his aggressive set that had the adulate crowd in a dance trance, he brought out a surprise Hip Hop posse including rappers, Problem and Too $hort. The surprise entourage jumped out into the crowd and made the set one of the highlights of the entire festival.
Not to be outdone, the next act on the main stage the Russian German electro house DJ Zedd brought a spectacular light and pyro technic show to keep the crowd going. Honing his skills in the demure industrial town of Kaiserslautern Germany, his dark deep trance beats has made him one of the biggest names in EDM. His show ended with a barrage of fireworks, just as BASSNECTAR was beginning his closing set on the Harder stage. The San Francisco DJ lived up to his moniker with a deafening huge bass sound that made music fans in the front row feel like their entrails were being eviscerated, and the crowd loved it. The main stage closed out with one of EDM’s most successful superstars, Calvin Harris. The Grammy winning super producer from Scotland played a string of his well know hit songs, that had a huge crowd dancing one last round in their long twelve hour day.
