ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC ELECTRIFIED crowds at Safe in Sound, with artists like Borgore contributing to both the growth of such events and to the genre as a whole.Borgore, Snails, Boombox Cartel, Terravita—if you have ever listened to music from any of these artists and love dancing, you would probably love the Safe in Sound Festival! I had the opportunity to travel back home this past weekend and experience a concert like no other.
This festival came to Albany in September 2014, and has not come back since. However, it came to Wallingford, Connecticut on October 8 before heading to Boston, Massachusetts on Sunday.
Back in April, I went to the Chainsmokers concert at Rensselaer presented by UPAC, in which the crowd held light sticks and jumped up and down the majority of the time. The Safe in Sound Festival was much different—head banging galore!
I entered The Dome to see laser lights of pinks, greens, and yellows shooting around the room, the crazy graphics behind the DJs, with the same number of a thousand or so people just as there was at the Chainsmokers concert. However, there was one main difference between the two concerts—one was with college students with jeans and tanks on at a concert, and the other with college students with exotic outfits at a rave.
Each artist had an hour long performance in line for the night. First was Boombox Cartel. I didn’t know much of who this was or anything about their music. It came as no surprise what I would be hearing, though—electronic dance music.
My favorite artist of the night was Borgore by far. Although I can’t recall many songs I heard throughout the night, I can recall a few of Borgore’s due to him singing along and amping up the crowd, as part of the last act of the night. The song that stuck out to me the most was “Decisions,” his own song. Much of the music I heard that night was a mix of other artists’ music, however, Borgore played the most of his own original tracks. The one thing I did not like was that, with the worked-up crowd at exactly midnight cheering for one more song, he unfortunately continued to exit off the stage.
In addition, Borgore and Snails had the most interesting graphic displays behind them, ranging from snails (obviously) to funky light patterns. Thinking of lights, several festival-goers had special electric light gloves on; they would go up to others and perform a light show by moving their hands in different motions while their fingertips glowed.
Would I go back to a festival like this again in the future? Perhaps. I would like to go to one in which the artists play a majority of songs with lyrics that all people can sing along to though, whereas with this Safe in Sound Festival it happened only a few times. If I had been singing along the whole night, I would probably lose my voice, while also being extremely physically exhausted.
Overall, ths experience was like no other, and very different from the Chainsmokers concert, yet I’m happy I could say I have been to one!