Meltdown 2012

Last weekend in Grand Prairie, Texas (a suburb of Dallas) a little known festival called Meltdown occurred. Artists from the likes of Pretty Lights, Flux Pavilion, Feed Me, and Passion Pit showed up to perform. And what a day it was.

Held in a minor league baseball park and it's adjacent parking lots, the festival began to heat up as the sun went down. Though it started at 3pm with acts such as Lucky Date and DallasK, the majority of people showed up to beat the Texas heat just as the sun was going down on the main stage with Shiny Toy Guns performing. With exorbitant amounts of energy lead singer Carrah Faye Charnow pumped up the crowd  cane in hand (no one was sure if she was hurt or if it was a fashion accessory). With synth driven rock anthems, they kept the audience interested through their hour long set.

Passion Pit was up next, and it was obvious this band was the reason for many people coming. Lead singer Michael Angelakos would not let us forget that they were from Boston, Ma, but otherwise spent his time making sure that every person had their hand up to the music and was singing along to the words of "The Reeling", "Little Secrets", and "Sleepyhead". Personally, I felt having a band as well-known as Passion Pit playing at an EDM festival was a great idea, and it mixed up the crowd who was there significantly. Angelakos noted "I'm sorry we need to stop between songs unlike the DJ's here" but no one seemed to mind at all.


Next up was Sander Van Doorn, who brought some classic house experience to a festival that seemed to exude dubstep and Avicii type melodic house. He stuck to his deep/progressive/electro house roots seemed to control the decks better than anyone else that night. A high point was his mix of Renegade and Kernkraft 400.

Next on stage was Swedish House Mafia member Steve Angello. As expected, he began his set with the new SHM single "Greyhound" to a rowdy crowd. However, after that, his set seemed just up to par. Playing out EDM hit after hit, it seemed as if he just copied and pasted the Beatport top 100 of the past 3 years. Though it was nice to hear "One(Your Name)"played, I enjoyed sitting in the 1st base seats enjoying an ice cream rather than ogling over what I consider to be an overrated DJ. SHM would have been a different story.

I headed over to the Bass stage, eager not to miss Feed Me's treacherous set. Though the sound technicians could taken "bass" in the name more lightly (read the EQ on the speakers were awful) Feed Me still managed to make the large crowd go nuts to his most popular songs as well as a great mix of moombahton. The fog and laser show was almost over the top but made for a great atmosphere.

I winded my way back to the main stage for Pretty Lights. Although I only managed to stay for the first part, his dominance over this festival was clear: the field was packed and the lights spectacle was incredible. He seemed more interested in getting the crowd raging however, than letting us groove to his west coast style beats. Although he was only able to fit a scaled down version of his setup on the stage, it was still beyond anything I have seen other than, of course, Deadmau5's cube etc.

I skipped out on Flux Pavilion because I had just seen him in Houston two days ago with Cookie Monsta and Brown & Gammon. That concert was out-of-this-world with confetti and CO2 cannons, though Flux didn't come on until 1:15 in the morning.



Flux at Stereo Live in H-Town ------->




Overall, for $66 and an impressive lineup, Meltdown Festival was worth it. I know will never compare to  Electric Zoo in september though (hope to see you there).

P.S. For all of you at EDC Vegas this weekend: stay safe, rage hard, and dance your asses off.