This One is for the Headbangers

From North Coast Music Festival

North Coast. A festival full of flashing colorful strobe lights. Music that can be heard from the west side all the way to the north side of Chicago. Out of the many festivals in Chicago this one is one of the smaller ones because of the type of music. There aren't as many artists for the EDM scene as there are for other genres. The festival is held in Grant Park, which also hosts Pitchfork Music Festival, in the west side. This past year the festival had an estimated attendance of over 50,000 which is a significant increase from the prior years. The festival grounds aren't as large as Lollapalooza but they still have a variety of vendors and food/drinks stands.

I haven't made my way to this festival yet because of the weird timing. This past year the date was set for September 1st through the 3rd. So usually the music festival is end of August or beginning or September, right when the school year starts which makes planning hard. From the stories I've heard from my friends they said it is wild. The security isn't too difficult just normal metal scanners and body check. Everything that is neon or bright dominants the festival grounds. There are crazy sparkling lights, neon signs for advertisements, and unique decorations that are hung for shade, sorta like tarps but a lot prettier! There are glowing balloons and balls thrown around during the concerts as well. As you can tell from the image below, neon is a common theme.

From Live for Live Music

The skyline stage (pictured above) is one of the three stages. Just like the other festivals, there are constantly shows playing on each stage. One easy aspect of the festival is that the stages are relatively close to one another so traveling between them are nice. But they are also evenly spaced apart so that there is space for the crowds of thousands of people that circle around the stage.

The lineup for this past year included: Dead Mau5 & Eric Prydz, Gucci Mane, Bonobo, Lil Dicky, Lettuce, Badbadnotgood, STS9, Carnage and Skepta. This year the festival included some other artists like Post Malone and Hippie Sabotage to add some diversity and bring in other types of crowds. This festival is definitely not one of the local Chicagoans favorites. The music goes later into the night and is anything but quiet and peaceful so a lot of adults don't like the disturbance. A lot of conservative adults are almost afraid of the types of people that flock to this festival. I have heard many opinions from parents that talk very poorly of the festival because of the aura that surrounds it. Many of them 'warn' their children to stay away from such a place. But of course I disagree with their narrow minded opinions because there is not a significant amount of violence or anything bad associated with it. There are the same usual problems that any festival will have.

From TimeOut

The crowd is mainly people in their lower to mid/late 20's. To give you guys an idea of the type of people attending, there are people covered with full body tattoos and piercings in places you didn't know you could even pierce. TimeOut put together a slideshow of the craziest outfits from the 2012 festival. Many of these styles could be classified as rave clothes which just means they are bright so they contrast against the stage lights. A lot of these clothes could be found from stores like Spencer's and Hot Topic. There is neon anything and everything including tutus, fishnet tights for you upper or lower body, wigs, booty shorts, bras, suspenders, furry hats and glasses.

This festival is another great example of a magical wonderland of music with the bright colors, alien like people and crazy lights.

Festival Tip: Make sure you are prepared to stay put in your spot at the stage you want to be at for no less than two hours. Once the crowds start to surround the stage, there is really no getting out.