In a land known for religion, The Sundance Film Festival, and world-class skiing and snowboarding resorts, Utah isn’t exactly your first destination for electronic music festivals. That is, until V2 Presents and Das Energi Festival reared their beautiful heads. The 5th anniversary of Das Energi Festival was something to revel in which brought some of the biggest names in the scene right now to a crowd of just under 20,000 people in two days. While that’s not an EDC Las Vegas number, for the massive talent they brought, it’s crystal clear that they are doing something very, very right.
Gathering at The Great Saltair, the masses rushed into the gorgeous building and breathed in the spectacular landscape that opened up on the other side. The Great Salt Lake cutting off the mountains in the distance, making them appear as floating clouds as the ember sunset fell bringing forth the headliners.
Day one brought on artists that included Elephante, BTSM, Nora En Pure, Illenium, DESTRUCTO, and headlining acts from Tiesto, Caspa & Rusko, and Eprom. Nora’s beautiful and uplifting house set, coupled with the the mountains and the reflected sun on the lake were breathtaking.
DESTRUCTO brought his west coast house style that had everyone reporting to the dance floor for his entire set. A great fusion of hip hop, electro, and house with visuals to boot that was just getting the night started.
And don’t worry, because as soon as this set was over and while taking a short water break, we were uplifted with all of the feels by Illenium performing inside at the Synergy Station. One of our favorite moments was when he let go, and we let go of it all while listening to his remix of Kaskade’s “Disarm You.”
Tiesto threw down an all around “best of everything” set, while Caspa & Rusko got dirty, grimey, and straight up mental, with Eprom getting extra weird with the future tech sounds on the Galactic Flats.
Day two brought the likes of Drezo (with an appearance from Dillon Fra..I mean DJ Hanzel who joined him for a little b2b action), Jayceeoh, Ilan Bluestone, Slander, and marshmello. Buckets ready, prepare to keep it mello. For a full hour and 15 minutes, everyone was bouncing to “Magic” with Jauz, and we all know it’s not a marshmello show without everyone singing and crying with our own symphony to Marshmello’s remix of Adele’s “Hello” that we all know and love. Can’t forget about his massive track “Alone” that had us all dancing and singing aloud as well.. “Trying to find my way back home to you…” Mellogang created an amazing vibe.
The closing headliners for the night were none other than Gareth Emery, Dillon Francis, and Black Asteroid. Gareth played some of our all time favs, going in with the classics and some amazing remixes from across the trance spectrum that we’ve come to love and expect from him. Headlining Energi Field outside was Dillon Francis. Dillon was in absolute ridiculous rare form. Throwing out random tracks like a rendition of the “Macarena” and building it into a monster drop with something beyond unexpected, he had you losing your proverbial sh*t. But we can’t forget to mention the insane visuals that had us nearly falling over, rolling on the ground laughing when Guy Fieri came on screen as a food monster gobbling up everything in site as “KANDY” was dropping, along with Gerald of course. But it was really at the end of the set when it all came together with Dillon coming on the speaker yelling “This shit’s beautiful as fuck” as “Love In The Middle Of A Firefight” is playing. Smiles, tears, hugs, it was the perfect way to end the festival.
Black Asteroid had the Galactic Flats shucking and jiving to some heavy dark and dirty techno sounds. We wish we would have spent a little more time in that area, because we heard it was an incredible time with some dirty tech the whole time. But for both days, that wasn’t the only thing that the Galactic Flats stage/area had to offer. They had many art installments from some amazing local talent, and live art and painting going on throughout the festival. Some very cool art pieces and sculptures, and some amazing local graffiti. Plenty of eye catching things to stimulate the mind. On top of being on the salt flats, it was a nice getaway from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the festival, with so many people going wild for all of the amazing talent. And, oh yeah, one more time, that breathtaking sunset.
The vibes held strong throughout for both days of Das Energi. It was a great mix of veteran ravers, shufflers, and a lot of new festival-goers that we talked to who were ecstatic for their first festival, and they picked the right one. From the sunny west coast of California, to our nations capital, Washington, DC, people came from all over the states, and nobody was disappointed. With a stacked lineup, a unique venue that always had you feeling as though you were part of one giant family, although this was our first time covering Das Energi Festival, it won’t be our last.
We’d like to thank the organizers and staff with Das Energi and V2 for having us come out, and we look forward to more great events to come.
P.S. Check out Get Freaky coming up this Halloween for your next SLC festival event.
Co-author: Joshua Schellhammer
Connect with Das Energi Festival:
https://www.facebook.com/DasEnergiFestival
https://twitter.com/dasenergifest
https://www.instagram.com/dasenergifestival
http://dasenergifestival.com
Share On
