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Revisting The Electric Forest (Essay and Gallery)

Saturday :: 06.30.12 :: Highlights

Nobody Beats The Drum | Forest Stage

Dutch electronic trio Nobody Beats The Drum wowed concert goers with two performances this weekend – the first being a DJ set deep inside the Sherwood Forest Saturday night in between SCI and STS9’s performances. As we wandered towards the stage you could hardly see the crowd but as a stage light or laser from the forest hit a tree in the middle of the crowd you could tell that there was a massive party going on. Even though the sound quality from the stage was less than desirable, these three dudes had the forest rocking. With an excellent fusion of breaks, electro, hip-hop and more, Sjam Sjamsoedin, Jori Collignon and Rogier van der Zwagg (don’t even bother trying to pronounce these correctly!) performed an eclectic mix of their own material and covers. And while their DJ did include other artist’s material, the group prides themselves on using their own music during their live performance.

STS9 | Sherwood Court

Sound Tribe Sector 9 held their second performance of the weekend Saturday evening at the Sherwood Court. These artists truly are adaptable and catered to their crowd’s needs by playing two heavily electronic sets. Self-described as post-rock dance music, the quintet (Hunter Brown, Jeffree Lerner, David Murphy, David Phillips and Zach Velmer) put more emphasis on group rhythm rather than individual solos. The experimental musicians do a fantastic job of incorporating electronic, funk, jazz, drum and bass and hip-hop into their sound and put on a fantastic light and visual display. There were a few lulls in the set but ‘Inspire Strikes Back’, ‘When The Dust Settles’ and ‘The Unquestionable Supremacy of Nature’ got the crowd moving and overall was an incredibly fun and dance-worthy performance.

Girl Talk | Ranch Area
I left Sound Tribe’s set early to catch a little bit of Girl Talk’s performance at the Ranch Area and I was greeted by a rendition of a Beatles song. I happily accepted the change of pace despite my preconceived notions of the DJ and distaste for mash-ups. Girl Talk (Gregg Michael Gillis) began his career in 2007 and has been the focus of a lot of controversy because of his unauthorized use of music samples. For someone that I had originally wrote off as a DJ, I was extremely surprised at how much fun and creative his mash-ups were. His set was exciting and entertaining, and the crowd was absolutely soaking it up!

All images by B.Hockensmith Photography