Catching up with Doorly at IDentity Fest, and more electronic tomfoolery
The electronic music festival hit Lakewood Amphitheatre on Tuesday, August 23
- Bobby Feingold
- Booka Shade performs at IDentity Fest
It’s every Republicans worst nightmare come true. Your preacher warned you about this, and now it’s here: The Euro-fication of America at IDentity Fest!
?
Youngins dressed in their raver finest of neon knock-off Wayfarers, ripped up panty hose and bandana scarves hit Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood yesterday for the all-day electronic music festival. This event would have never been popular when I was in high school in Rascall Flats-loving Marietta, but here were well-adjusted teenagers in Ke$ha-inspired Halloween outfits ready to dance their asses off. High-brow acts like Booka Shade and Hercules and Love Affair played alongside party-hardy Chuckie and Atlanta’s own Le Castle Vania. I was most looking forward to Hercules and Love Affair, but they were scheduled at 2:15—who did they expect to be there that early? Jam band Disco Biscuits also performed to their loyal stoned fans (think Phish), but they were the oddities of the line-up.
?
Rusko, Kaskade and Steve Aoki were the headliners. Did you know that techno champion Kaskade served as a missionary in Japan? Neither did I, but I thought that trivia might put some of those God-fearing Americans at ease. Aoki, half-brother to model Devon Aoki and heir to the Benihana restaurant fortune, founded Dim Mak Records in 1996, and boy have things changed for electronic music since then. The label has released music from MSTRKRFT and the Klaxons, but now it’s Aoki who’s the biggest star. Every song Aoki played, he shouted, “This is my new song!” His stage set-up was impressive, with giant letters “AOKI” that corresponded to the screen behind him. Collaborators like Lil Jon and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer appeared in the videos projected on the screen, acting as a pre-recorded cameo. Aoki was exhausted after jumping around on stage and even climbing a rafter at one point, way more action than a typical DJ. Still, it made me wonder how people who actually sing and dance do it.
?
DJ Doorly played the Advent stage, and I caught up with the affable Brit to talk about the difference between American and European audiences.