The fourth annual Goldrush Music Festival returned to Rawhide Western Town and it was bigger and badder than ever before with fiery musical showdowns, a full Wild West expansion, and a gold mine of hidden treasures!
A few weeks ago, the quaint 1880’s western-themed town was given a festival makeover with three full days of electronic dance music featuring top artists, Above & Beyond, CamelPhat, Chris Lorenzo, CloZee, Cosmic Gate, Diplo, Getter, Gorgon City, Green Velvet, GRiZ, Illenium, JAUZ, Kai Wachi, NGHTMRE, Noizu, Seth Troxler, Sidepiece, Svdden Death, Tiga, Troyboi, Vintage Culture, Walker & Royce, Wax Motif, Zedd, Zeds Dead, and many more.
Goldrush has seen a large amount of growth since its inaugural event in 2017. The festival expanded from two to three days, increased the grounds, amped up production across the three main stages – Golden Gorge, The Hideout, and Pioneer’s Peak, and added new attractions for festival goers to explore.
Golden treasures were hidden throughout the ole’ fashioned rodeo town. If you were ready to dig up some fun then the Six Gun Performance Theatre was the place to be. It had everything from live stand-up comedy, karaoke, magic shows, and stunt performances. When leaving the theatre gates, the options were endless – you could get funky at the roller disco, place some bets at the casino, dance your heart out under the glimmering disco ball at the silent disco, explore live painting at Moonshiners Art Walk, and goldpan for some dispensary goodies.
Speaking of dispensary goodies, Tumbleweed Park was not limited to gold, but flower too! The Park was an area of the festival grounds presented by some of the best dispensary companies in the state. You could get tons of freebies from the various dispensary tents while listening to the sounds of Arizona’s local gems performing atop the cannibis themed art car. Some of the notable up and coming acts that performed at Tumbleweed included Alaska, Kody Black, Richi Savage, Tonelow, and Voodreau.
Our time in the Wild West was all kinds of Weird & Wonderful thanks to the roaming costumed performers that took the stages and marched in the parades across town. This Weird & Wonderful experience was brought to you by the Zoppe Italian Family Circus. The circus could be found performing their crazy antics in the tent behind The Hideout.
Goldrush may have had many attractions, but our main focus was the music and the lineup was stacked! Day one began at the Golden Gorge with Arizona-based rising artist, Ekonovah. He made his main stage debut with his signature house flare. Golden Gorge continued to roar all night with Cosmic Gate and Kayzo to follow. Cosmic Gate’s “The Launch” lit up the dome megastructure and kicked off the night. Kayzo then took the decks and turned up the bass with his hard edits of “Way 2 Sexy” and “Love Tonight.”
Booming bass continued just across the way at Pioneer’s Peak. This stage was made for getting rowdy and hosted wild performances all weekend. Pioneer saw some explosive sets from bass music’s elite, ATLiens, Getter, Kill The Noise, NGHTMRE, Virtual Riot, Svdden Death, Trampa, and more.
House and techno – the rarest gold of the Wild West could be found at The Hideout stage. On Friday, we dug up the grooviest tech we could find – Technasia. This was our first Technasia experience, but definitely not our last. Saddling up next was a showdown between two outlaws, Seth Troxler and Tiga. The legendary producers played an iconic b2b set.
The closers of the night consisted of Illenium at Golden Gorge, CamelPhat at The Hideout, and Svdden Death at Pioneer’s Peak. We split the final set, starting with Illenium’s melodic, bass driven performance. He shared emotive pieces from his albums, ‘Awake’ and ‘Fallen Embers’ and had us in the feels when he asked the crowd to sing along to “Crawl Outta Love”. At last, the finale – DJ/production duo CamelPhat. They entranced fans with their floating laser art and beautiful compositions, “For a Feeling” and concluding track, “Breathe.”
Day two was our favorite type of marathon – house music all night long. We jumped right in with a b2b from Wax Motif and Chris Lorenzo at Golden Gorge. They wrangled up a large crowd with a set list full of G-house flavor, dropping both of their hits, “Fly Kicks,” “Bad Bitch,” and Chris Lorenzo’s highly-anticipated and then unreleased, “California Dreamin’.”
The house music continued on, but this time back at The Hideout. Noizu provided over an hour of bliss “4 The People” with his top tracks, “Baby Baby” and “Summer 91 (Looking Back).” We eventually broke our house marathon with a nostalgic, breathtaking performance from Above & Beyond. They played their classics, “Thing Called Love” and “Sun & Moon” as beautiful sentiments colored the screens behind them. It read, “No substitute for real hugs. No substitute for being actually together. We are together.” After the past couple of years we’ve all had, it felt good to finally be together again.
Rawhide’s bandits, rangers, and law-abiding citizens had a few choices for the final dual of the night. Zedd at the main stage, Gorgon City at The Hideout, and NGHTMRE at Pioneer’s Peak. We split the last time slot with Zedd and Gorgon City. Zedd livened the night and took us down the path of memory lane with his originals, “Spectrum” and “Stay The Night.” Meanwhile, Gorgon City had us singing and dancing until the final minute with their vocal packed track list, “Body Language,” “All Four Walls,” and “Imagination”.
Day 3 took off with a bang with artists such as Peachy Keen, Avitas, and Black V Neck getting the day started with a mix of bass, house and a little bit tech. Next up on our list of must sees was Westend who teleported us into a world of house beats that had the entire crew getting down. Shortly after Westend we quickly shifted gears and caught some of the rising star, Dabin, who hit us with a load of remixes and originals off his catalog. Dabin’s set proved to be more melodic than Illenium’s just a day before and the sad boys in the crowd couldn’t have been more about it. Dabin would end his set in a fantastic fashion with his heavy hitting collaboration with Slander and Seven Lions on “First Time”.
Next up was Vintage Culture at the sneaky Hideout stage who would entrench us with delicious house beats that had the crowd vibing for the entirety of the set. After getting our dose of house we would hike it back on over to mainstage to catch some of Party Favor and Nitti Gritti’s duo act, Sidepiece. Having never seen Sidepiece, their set would prove to be a welcomed breeze of house, progressive, and some classics thrown in that had the crowd salivating for more. Next up on main was Diplo who would hit the stage after a brief 15 minute technical delay. After hitting the decks Diplo threw down a house set that was slightly unexpected, but struck all the right chords with the crowd. Last but not least we would catch the ending 30 minutes of Clozee who threw down some wonky bass that ended the night in a trippy, but awesome fashion.
2021 was undoubtedly the year of Goldrush with expanded stages, overall area, and a lineup that was tough to beat. The festival went off without a hiccup and we eagerly await news on the 2022 installment. Stay tuned for more news as Goldrush creeps closer.
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