Last year I heard Insomniac was taking its Wonderland festival and bringing it to The Bay. The thing I remember most when looking into Beyond was that Insomniac was trying to create a festival so visually & audibly stimulating there was no need to rely on ecstasy or LSD. As you can imagine, I was pretty eager to find out how well they pulled it off both personally as well as for other attendees. And as much as I can’t speak for them, though some of the pictures can, I will speak a little on my own account.
Visually, everything was pretty enchanting my two nights there, but during the day the drabness of the Shoreline Amphitheater seeped through. Much of the crowd was dressed in full fantasy and really made the scene more than anything. But where as the visuals were decent, the music faltered.
Some of the night acts, namely Zeds Dead & WhiteNoize, were a helluva time, but the music that played most of the day can best be described by one song, the dirty bit version of ‘Time’ by The Black Eyed Peas. In other words, once the beat dropped everything went to shit especially the rhythm. It reminds me of music Zombies would listen to – it lacks any substance or soul. A dead beat if you will. Or unfinished at best.
I do realize though that a mass amount of people like this music and the EDM business is a boomin’. However, EDM is still very much in its infancy and like any other emerging style that’s ever come about, the tracks first popularized aren’t usually the most well remembered.
