Freaky Deaky ignited the fires of hell, stirred the creaky bones of ravers past, and brought us back to the rave graveyard for another spooktacular weekend. As we close the coffin on Freaky Deaky 2021, we want to look into the crystal ball one last time to remember our collective beautiful nightmare. The Houston Raceway in Baytown was once again descended upon for us to revel in devilish delights to ring in Halloween. While the decorations are now flooding the shopping aisles for the next holiday, Halloween will always live on in our hearts and Freaky Deaky has a permanent place there.
Campers got the party started on Thursday and set up their campsites with ghoulish decorations. The Mayor of Freaky Town paid those who dared to be the scariest camp of all to see if they had what it takes to have the Freaky Deaky crown. Kicking off the weekend, Adventure Club turned the campgrounds into a maddening dance party that got the spooky vibes going. In the city, those that arrived early in excited anticipation got down to some Boogie T with special guest Subdocta.
Freaky Deaky 2021 officially commenced as the all hallowed grounds welcomed hordes of costumed ravers ready to conduct their seances, sacrifices, and spells in person; something we have all been feverishly waiting since 2019. Two skeleton hands towered over us, welcoming us all to an epic Halloween rave. In the center the grounds, attendees could tour the free haunted house, with creepy fog, terrifying goblins, and more to get our blood pumping. For those looking to really up the ante could get a tattoo on site, selected by spinning the jeopardy wheel from hell to commemorate surviving the night.
The Crypt
The Crypt awakened our souls with the deep vibrations of bass. Artists like Chomppa, Sully, Crizzly, INZO, and more had the ground shaking with fortifiable bangers throughout Day One. A standout was up and coming producer, INZO, who played out incredible tracks like his chart topper, “Otherthinker”, as well as showing love to Porter Robinson‘s “Sea of Voices” and “Lionhearted”. His refreshing set list and fluid mixing elevated our souls to a whole new level before dropping us down into some dirty bass rabbit hole’s that had our jaws on the floor and heads knockin’. Keeping the fires roaring, Boogie T B2B Dirt Monkey and 12th Planet B2B Riot Ten brought out our inner demons and had the rails shaking.
On Day Two the message was clear: let’s get weird. Bass heads were treated to a spectacularly odd evening, from Esseks‘ mind bending rhythms and creepy visuals into the very trippy Freddy Todd B2B Mr Bill, we knew that night was something extra special. As darkness cloaked the raceway, we got our moon legs ready and listened to the call for all the star children to return to the mothership for LSDream. Packed with heaters, “Peace, Love, and Wubz”, and inspiring melodic arpeggio’s, we were blasted out into the spooky stratosphere. Tucked between deeply loved hits like, “Eternal Now” and “High Vibrations”, we got down to all kinds of tricks and treats like Minnesota‘s, “Hi Lo”, GRiZ‘s “Astro Funk”, and a dope Sublime space bass remix. Flipping the script even further, we could all of our much needed psytrance with Infected Mushroom. With badass psy mixes of Beastie Boys‘ “Sabotage”, Porter Robinson‘s “Spitfire”, and Linkin Park‘s, “Numb” intertwined with their own collab with WHITENO1SE, “More of Just the Same” and their own, “Becoming Insane”, the energy just exploded.
Boneyard
It didn’t take long for the curious drive of dark techno to suck us in on Friday. Layton Giordani had us in his clutches with slick, intoxicating melodies and bass reverberating our black techno hearts with tracks like, Charlotte De Witte‘s, “Come On, Dance With Me” and his own stunner, “New Generation”. Shufflers laid down crop circles in the straw covering the ground while Matador kept the bass driving, paired with soaring synth chords, taking us into the depths of a techno fantasy. The evening came to a head at the Boneyard when Cristoph took to the decks that brought a spell-binding precision of provocative melodies and stunning rhythms. Tracks like Pryda‘s, “Snaz”, Cristoph’s collab with Artche, “Illusions”, and the hauntingly beautiful, “Sweet Disposition” Temper Trap remix had has howling at the moon.
Day Two switched it up and bumped the BMP to about 200 plus for all the hardstyle our evil souls craved. To say the bones damn near jumped out of our bodies from the thundering bass is an understatement. Artists like Mrotek, Pulsatorz, Dr Phunk, and Toneshifterz put out so much energy that we couldn’t help but feel like the Sanderson sisters, taking the lives of the little rave children around us. Ben Nicky presented XTREME where everything was turned up to the nth degree and Code Black B2B Audiofreq had the crowd in a jumpstyle frenzy. Closing out the night, we jumped back over to the Crypt to get down to the dazzling hardstyle queen, Lady Faith. Casted under her incantation, we danced till the very end, with bangers like, D-Block & S-te-Fan and DJ Isaac‘s, “Harder State of Mind”, a hardstyle flip on Zedd‘s “Beautiful Now”, and her own, “Supernova”.
Haunted Hallow
For all of the house heads, there was no better place to get their funky shuffle on than at the Haunted Hallow. Both nights were packed with boots, cats, and bumping bass. On Day One we fell deep into the Dirtybird Records takeover, with Digital Dre, DJ E-CLYPS, Sage Armstrong B2B Lucati, Golf Clap, VNSSA B2B J. Worra, Walker & Royce, and lastly the label head himself, Claude VonStroke. It became a wild Halloween house party, full of phat beats, funky costumes, and in the words of Golf Clap, “amazing chicken fingers”. Balloons bounced across the crowd and even security joined in on the game as we vibed out to the Dirtybird magic.
Day Two, tech and bass house entered the chat with the likes of Blossom, Matroda, Sidepiece, Wax Motif, and our favorite mohawk tech house god, Green Velvet. The fusion of vivacious rhythms, seductive vocals, and ear worm melodies has us coming back for more throughout the night. The tech house energy had us in a trance and we damn near had cabin fever when the night came to a close. We could feel the poltergeist of the Hallow stay with us all the way back home.
The Shrine
The main stage was once again The Shrine, where all came to worship the spookiest of acts. Each day hosted an array of chilling sounds and terrifying talents. Day One we kicked it off with JVNA, a set that showed us the true balance between the light and the dark, where she also treated fans to unreleased songs from her upcoming album, Where You Are, set to release this month. The crowd was full of Demon Slayer fans and JVNA delivered with the intro song from the famous anime. Dabin got us in our feels with guitar serenades, like “Holding On” and his remix of MitiS‘, “Alive”, before pulling some head bangers from his back pocket. The Shrine continued to hold space for some of the biggest names in the scene like Said the Sky, Troyboi, Galantis, and lastly Deadmau5. From terrifying descents into the inferno with, “Avaritia”, to a lullaby-esque journey “Bridged By A Lightwave”, while also throwing in hilariously ridiculous visuals to “Ghosts and Stuff”, it was one hellish of an experience to say the least from one of EDM’s legends. As it should be.
Day Two kicked it off with house music staples Dances With White Girls into Mahalo to bring us back from the dead for one more day. Following up Kaivon, Dion Timmer, Sullivan King, and Ghastly brought in roaring bass tunes, shredding metal guitar, and beats that got the fire within us burning. Switching it up yet again, Vini Vici came through with their highly sought after psytrance sound, with rhythmic vocal cuts and succinct pulsations that truly opened up our third eye. And to finish our beloved All Hallow’s Eve festival, the dubstep father himself, Excision, laid us and Freaky Deaky to rest. As if anyone else could.
Freaky Deaky and the Disco Donnie team once again gave us a beautiful Halloween weekend and reminded us how much we love our fellow ravers and that all of us weirdos and freaks, witches and fairies, will always have a place to call home. Can it be Halloween again already?
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