Electric Zoo Festival 2012: What You Need to Know – Sunday: Hilltop Arena
Don’t let the fact that Bloody Beetroots is headlining fool you – the Hilltop Arena will be THE place to get your dubstep fix for the day. The range of dubstep DJs is wide, and will consist of everything from all-out grimey drops to more relaxed melodic wobbles. The stage also has some great wildcards thrown in that will surely mix things up, including live performance, drum and bass, and mashups. So when you are tired of hearing synth drop after synth drop over at the Main Stage, head down to Hilltop for a (literal) change of pace.
Be sure to check out all of the Electronica Oasis guides to Electric Zoo below:
- The Basics & Friday: Main Stage
- Friday: Hilltop Arena (Group Therapy)
- Friday: Riverside (Fools Gold Clubhouse)
- Friday: Sunday School Grove (Vagabundos)
- Saturday: Main Stage
- Saturday: Hilltop Arena
- Saturday: Riverside (Dim Mak)
- Saturday: Sunday School Grove
- Sunday: Main Stage
Check out our full preview of Sunday’s Hilltop Arena after the jump!
Who You Can’t Miss
EOTO – EOTO is an absolute must-see Sunday. Consisting of Michael Travis and Jason Hann, of the much loved and hula-hooped-to String Cheese Incident, EOTO is live performance dubstep. Travis and Hann eschew prerecorded loops and instead create them with live instruments and remix them on the spot. It is jam-band-meets-electronica in its purest form and guarantees that no two performances are ever the same. EOTO is also known for some legendary visuals – at Electric Forest they performed inside a giant lotus that literally started blinking at the festival-goers. Head over to the Hilltop and let EOTO cool you down before Flux Pavilion and Excision hit the stage and melt your face off.
Excision – Excision is the grimiest of the grime playing at Hilltop on Sunday and his live performances are legendary. His yearly Shambhala Festival mix is downloaded by the millions every year – which is a testament in itself to how good he is live. He can often be found tearing it up with his fellow Canadian Datsik, and one can only hope that Excision will invite him back to the stage to add his skills to the mix. Even without Datsik, he has razor-sharp precision and unbeatable song selection. There is no replica for seeing Excision live – watching videos of his 1000,000 Watt Tour will blow out your speakers. So make sure to pencil him into your E-Zoo schedule to see the best live grime out there.
Excision – X Rated feat. Messinian
Under The Radar Performer
Z-Trip – Z-Trip is another out-of-place artist at the Hilltop Arena on Sunday which makes him all the more Under-the-Radar. Z-Trip is hands-down one of the best Mashup artists out there, rivaling the likes of Girl Talk and The Kleptones. He has a reputation for bringing the house down at giant festivals around the world, but his Hip-Hop Heavy style might make him less well-known in the EDM world. His penchant for hip-hop, however, is not limiting. Z-trip pulls beats from every genre out there, including some of the grimiest dubstep out there (check out his release with Datsik earlier this year below). Z-trip’s beats will pull you in, and before you know it, you’ll be shouting “Oh Shit! Did Z just mash Eazy-E??.” And, to top it off, he may also be the only artist to show up at Electric Zoo with a suitcase full of Vinyl.
Datsik & Z-Trip – Double Trouble
Who You Can Pass On
PeaceTreaty – PeaceTreaty has a great discography but they are a bit out of place in the Hilltop Arena, producing mostly House, Mashups and Bootlegs. They are likely at Hilltop due to their affiliation with Dim Mak, but their productions don’t belong. If you are looking for good, fun, club-friendly house music, you can find it pretty much everywhere else at Zoo, so it is probably not worth the early arrival or the trip over.
What We Want to Hear
Helicopter Showdown feat. Sluggo – The Wrestler
Thrice – Broken Lungs (Adventure Club Dubstep Remix)
DJ Fresh – Louder (Flux Pavilion and Doctor P Remix)