the Kinetic Cathedral hosts a day of EDM luminaries at Electric Daisy Carnival

Electric Daisy Carnival 2015

Saturday 11th July 2015
Milton Keynes Bowl, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, MK5 8AA, England MAP
early bird £60 + booking fee

Daily capacity: 65,000

I always know summer has truly started when Electric Daisy Carnival comes around. And this year was no exception, with the temperature soaring towards thirty degrees Celsius; the stage was set for the second Electric Daisy Carnival to be held in the Milton Keynes National Bowl.

After last year's 360 degree immersive big screen light show, there were huge expectations for the visual feast that the day was going to provide, from the off the obvious changes had brought a bit of a wow factor to the event.

With the main stage inside the National Bowl the arena last year was impressive but it was too all intense just another festival stage, this year the organisers had upped the stakes, bringing their ‘Kinetic Cathedral’ over the pond to the UK for the first time.

This behemoth of a stage simply took your breath away on first sight with giant screens aplenty and a plethora of special effects, this really was a stage to impress, flanked either side by giant owls, keeping their beady eyes on the gathered masses who had come to worship at the alter of many modern day EDM luminaries such as Tiesto, and Steve Aoki. On top of this mega stage they had made a shrewd move by bringing one of the fairground rides inside the bowl. A twisting swing ride which elevated the passengers about 50 metres up into the air, giving an unbeatable view of the main stage and most of Buckinghamshire.

We started the day off by watching a truly barnstorming set by the Dutch maestro Hardwell, voted the number one DJ in the world by Mixmag in 2014, it was soon clear to see why, without the darkness of the night sky to allow for maximum use of all the pyrotechnics at the mighty stages disposal it came down to a simply question, would he cut the mustard without all the tricks?

And there was a simple one word answer, YES, for me Hardwell delivered the set of the day, mixing up a storm dropping hits old and new, with notable inclusions for Faithless ‘Insomnia’ and a dirty remix of The White Stripes evergreen hit ‘Seven Nation Army’. I think a measure of the set was that this set seemed to catch the second biggest crowd of the day.

When his set finished the mass migration was astounding and could not of been anything shorter than demoralizing for the following act, Sick Individuals. We gave them a chance, but they didn’t really set the place alight, I believe this exodus was mainly in part to the strength of the line up on other stages, last year we never managed to attend a set on the other stages in the cosmic meadow, due to two facts, for us the strength of the main stage line up was unbelievable, and we were not aware of any other stages, this year after much better publication and sign posting, we soon found the other 3 stages tucked in amongst the rest of the fair ground attractions, with a strong line up to pick from we decided to see an act that have been one of the boom production duos of the past year, and Sigma brought all the hits! From their smash number 1 sample of Kanye Wet on ‘Nobody To Love’ to the Paloma Faith featuring ‘Changing’ the tent was rammed from front to back, and every single reveler was firmly in the hands of the dreadlocked MC, even the normally stony faced security guards were busting out some fine shapes! Ending with an exclusive play of their new single featuring Ella Henderson ‘Glitterball’. A triumphant set.

Feeling a bit puckish we decided to do a lap of the national bowls food stalls, and this is one of the areas I would really like to see EDC push forward next year, there was the usual food stalls offering stir-fry, burgers or fried chicken pretty much recycled over and over, with all the space surrounding the main bowl. It would easily be enough space to house a really impressive display of street food vendors. After a quick toilet stop we made our way back to the main bowl stage, to witness the arrival onto the Kinetic Cathedral of Steve Aoki.

He came out the blocks all guns firing! Dropping massive cuts, but one thing we did notice is that Seven Nation Army seems to be the remix of choice for 2015, only 20 odd minutes into his set he played the very same remix that Hardwell had already dropped earlier, and it was not to be the last time it was played on the day!

Aoki also brought his usual brand of high jinx to the stage with his party piece of launching about 30 cakes into the crowd during a thumping version of ‘Cake Face’, one thing I had noticed at EDC this year was the higher quota of a few more ‘seasoned’ faces around the event, and never have I seen more glee than when Aoki dropped 2unlimited ‘Get Ready For This’ from the faithful whistle and gloves posse, this moment almost felt like a real coming together of two tribes.

With only two acts left to grace the main stage the day had flashed by, the penultimate act to perform were the unflappable Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, over the last years the Belgian brothers have been slowly and surely climbing the ranks, and this polished performance served to show that on many other occasions they would clearly be seen as headlining material! I am sure their time will come, especially given their obvious close relationship with the obsessive EDC fans in the house tonight, nobody seems to interact with the crowd quite like the duo, mounting the DJ booth with the crowd pleasing Union Jack flag, throwing back memories of Swedish House Mafia, when they rocked the bowl, but if you are going to steal gimmicks from anybody?

As awesome a set as they delivered, you could not help but think most of the crowd were viewing them as a countdown to the main event, making one of only 2 scheduled stops to the UK this year, the lord of EDM was in town, and the master definitely showed up his apprentices, now I cant guarantee this statement being fact, and it is only of my own humble opinion, but I believe that Tiesto on the day was the only DJ to be actually mixing live on stage. This is not a man you see jumping up on the decks or running around throwing cake into the crowd, as much as I and most people really enjoy seeing the DJs loving their gig and really interacting with the crowd, the one thing I really do take my hat off to is somebody that doesn’t need all the cheap tricks!

He was obviously putting 110 % into getting everything spot on! and it really was a master class, jumping from old hits no new, dropping recent singles ‘Red Lights’ to the mighty build up to the all conquering ‘Adagio For Strings’. No matter how many times I have seen Tiesto, this is always a true hands up goose bumps moment! And I don’t think that feeling will ever lessen. With the rain closing in, and lasers lighting up the Milton Keynes sky, the day had drawn to a close, and with fireworks crashing all around the night sky it was time to leave for another year and make the long trip home to Gloucester.

I wont quite finish it there as I would like to add that yet again another improvement put into place meant we did not take hours getting out of the car parks and out of Milton Keynes, as those of you that have attended gigs here before will tell you that is no mean feat! So congratulations EDC.

We look forward to seeing you again!

review by: Jamie Licence

photos by: Jamie Licence / Tor Jones