I Went To Eastern Electrics, Didn't Do Drugs

Photo credit: Marc Sethi. All other images courtesy of the author.

Eastern Electrics is a three-day festival for which Seth Troxler posed naked with a banana and a framed photo of Roman Polanski. Much like the festival, the promo video came out of nowhere for most of us, so I here I am making last minute plans to head to London.

The festival, which launched in 2008, has relocated to Knebworth Park, a legendary venue just outside of London that has hosted historic performances from Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Ella Fitzgerald, and, most importantly, Robbie Williams (safe, innit).

The three-day event has camping, VIP camping, an oxygen bar, teepees, Richie Hawtin, Masters at Work, DJ Sneak, MK, Hot Natured, Joy Orbison, Tale of Us, Dixon, Levon Vincent, Crosstown Rebels, Maya Jane Coles, and pretty much everyone else.

The festival is my eleventh since March, so to change things up I make plans to tattoo my feet on the eve of the event. These are the things we do to keep ourselves entertained, while everyone else is doing drugs.

Anyway, my foot-tattoo scheme goes cold, so I reschedule my appointment for the night before Øya Festival, in Oslo (August 6), and head out un-inked.

First step, I successfully hide my train ticket from myself, and shell out a 26£ fine when I arrive at the station. I'm not going to delve into my thoughts on the London train system here, but basically the Tube can suck a stadium-sized North American EDM glow stick dick. I later find the ticket in my shoe.

Eastern Electrics is my first UK festival, and I'm excited to see how it compares to Melt!, Sonar, and the other large-scale electronic events I've recently attended.

Knebworth Park boasts a 15th century Manor House, six stages (plus a "Bedouin VIP stage," which is exactly what it sounds like), a "bespoke cocktail bar," the "famous bitch and stitch make up boudoir," and various other kitschy attractions.

My polite British friend Faiz accompanies/laughs at my inability to navigate British public transportation, and we finally arrive on the grounds, a shady glen where nobody in an official capacity seems to know anything (par for the course on the festival circuit). We eventually fumble our way to the main gate, ensconced in a small maze of fences and non-entrances.

Within a few seconds of entering the grounds, we find Theo Parrish playing jazzy house and disco jams in a bucket hat and a D'Angelo shirt at the Substation tent, which looks and sounds like it was borrowed from a local circus, and is packed with young lads dressed for a rainy day at the beach.

Theo drops Stephanie Mills' "The Medicine Song," a tall kid in a Hawaiian shirt does a bump and is immediately swarmed by yellow jacketed security, who escort him, and his group of sparkle-faced, tie-dye tank-topped-and-rain-booted friends out of the venue.

Theo adjusts the EQ, the highs hiss like a nitrous cracker filling up a tent-sized balloon, the lows flap like a drop-kicked tire. I check the schedule—Ben UFO, Dixon, Levon Vincent, Joy Orbison, Jackmaster, and Blawan will all be playing on this system.

We roam the grounds, which somewhat resemble a town fair, equipped with bumper cars (!), a small Ferris wheel, an "extreme" ride, face-painting booth and several poorly attended bars. The six stages appear to be twice too many for the crowd.

I'm told Saturday is the one people are holding out for, but thus far, the event is a far cry from the vaulted, sci-fi glory of Melt! To be fair, Eastern Electrics is a much younger festival, and the lineup is hard to fault. I get the feeling that its next iteration will be a vast improvement.

Deetron plays the main stage, a large tent, which is consistently packed throughout the day. The sound is robust, and the production value is impressive.

Deetron drops "Strings of Life"—all hands in the air. A guy in front of us casually rips poppers. It's 7PM. Nitrous balloons pepper the crowd like SpiritHoods at Coachella.

Eastern Electrics attendees have the opportunity to hear dozens of their favorite DJs throughout the course of a day, but I wonder about how representative that experience—or any festival DJ performance—can possibly be. Context is everything. The vibe builds, and you can't just fast forward to a sweet spot in the set.

"I think it's more of an introduction," Deetron tells me, when I run into him backstage. "Sort of a tasting menu of all the DJs throughout the day. You get the message of everyone, ideally."

When I ask how he feels a daytime festival set represents him, he responds with similar positivity.

"People play differently in the daytime," he explains. "Anything that's daytime, I really like. This could only have been topped if there was no tent. I like open air, day parties."

Maya Jane Coles takes the main stage, hair platinum, playing tech house, leaning back as she mixes, fully at the controls. She plays "Everything," from her new LP, Comfort. Kids snap photos and cheer. She's a local favorite.

Today's crowd is friendly, they've got inflatable rafts and alligators.

I try to ask a security guard where the artist area is, but he has "no fucking idea mate," and reveals that his radio is purely decorative, when I suggest he radio someone and ask.

"I don't know why I even have it, really. They just told me to hold this, stand here and look like a big shot," he says, with an embarrassed laugh.

The crowd passes around a giant neon double-sided dildo. London transportation, that's yours.

"London style has kind of morphed into that Essex shit. I can't even tell anymore," Faiz muses, as we wander the grounds. The Essex kids look like a grimy version of the Jersey Shore set.

It starts to rain, so we talk with a few security guards, sitting on a table under a flap of the tent. The event has gone some smoothly that they don't have much to do. A giant tells us that he thought his walkie-talkie was broken, it's so quiet.

"It's easygoing, yeah. I can't complain," he says. "Even the artists have been quite laid back."

Maya Jane Coles hops a golf cart back to her teepee, and we head back to the Substation for Ben UFO, who plays Caribou's Virgo Four remix, as Theo Parrish packs up his records and watches for a few minutes.

Dixon takes the stage. The tent's half full, but they aren't doing much. It's the smallest crowd I've seen him play to this summer, a quarter the size of Barcelona or Paris. He drops the new Agoria track, "Scala," which he's been playing out lately, Ten Walls and others. He plays great, but the kids appear to be waiting for something, perhaps Joy Orbison.

The NMBRS guys are drinking heavily, and so am I. Jackmaster's working on a bottle of Grey Goose, Faiz is eating chips, I'm pounding warm beers.

Levon Vincent

A Spanish girl thinks I'm Levon Vincent, which is jokes. She asks when I'm playing, though Levon is already on the decks.

One of the security guards, who looks like she could have a son in the audience, is a fan, requests that he play several of his own tracks. He drops "Man or Mistress" at the end of an excellent, vibey set. I forget there's a crowd. When I look back, there isn't much of one anyway.

Seth Troxler

We head back and forth between tents, joining the party on Seth Troxler's stage, where a kid in a headdress gives out nitrous balloons, and a pair of girls in neon capes and Bindis invite me to Burning Man, chewing their cheeks. They tell me they live in three or four different European and American cities, and describe Burning Man as a place where "at 2AM, all you want to do is fuck."

Back at the Substation, Joy Orbison plays Barnt's "Tunsten," to my surprise. We've all kind of gone off the rails except for Faiz, who's still eating chips, and NMBRS co-founder Spencer, who is suddenly DJing in Jackmaster's place.

There's been some kind of issue—Jackmaster's clearly less than thrilled about the turnout, and much less than sober. His Grey Goose ended up in the crowd, according to a security guard, but people are tight-lipped about what exactly went on. Spencer plays as if nothing's happened; the vibe backstage is kind of heavy.

The next train home isn't for several hours, so we opt for bumper cars, which gets pretty real. It's just three of us, so the guy taking tickets jumps in and runs us.

We drift around. It's getting light out, but we can't find a crowd. There's virtually no one at Blawan. The main stage has let out. Everything's closing up. We leave one of our new friends backstage at Substation waiting for MDMA, a dark pursuit at 5AM at the county fair.

Finally we find everyone, packed into the Dirtybird Showcase at the Outdoor Switchyard Stage, a 24-hour dirt floor encircled with shipping containers.

I've seen a lot of things in my time as a festival reporter, but this scene is face-off central. Nitrous cartridges outnumber cigarette butts, embedded in the spongy dirt. Smoke pours across the floor, a pig-faced kid sells balloons, three for 10£, eyes pink, leering.

Eats Everything drops his Adam F - "Circles" rework, then jilts the zombies for a minute with the original, raising his arms, raising the dead, sweeping up everything in his gargantuan reach, like Galactus reeling in jacks.

We wander some more. There are six stages—we forgot about half of them. People are spread out, but they're still going strong. The Futureboogie DJs play inside a giant white igloo, which is actually cracking, but we're rinsed.

We head to the train, I take a photo of the three most unhappy girls of all time.

We arrive at our station. I actually have my ticket, but somehow it has transformed into Faiz's return ticket, which worked on the first turnstile, but they're not feeling on the second. I pick up another 26£ fine. It's 8AM, the Tube has cost me a one-way flight today. On the other hand, I've taken advantage of Europe's honor system train service for the past three months, so I figure I had it coming.

I wake up at 11AM, my room smells like beer and bread, my face is stuck to my arm. I'm having violent dreams about tattooing "no" on my ankle, and look down to see my feet still untouched.

I clip off my wristband, sure I won't be returning to Eastern Electrics. I'm limping through this festival summer, still planning to finish strong. I started out with an "anything goes" approach, which has been steadily broken down into virtual abstinence. I'm going to shake things up a bit and cut beer out of the next trip too. Just me and my bleeding feet.