Sold-Out Electric Forest Ready to Explode This Weekend
Article by Mario Khoury
With art installations from captivating origins that always impress beyond compare and a production/setup which inspires marvel and awe from attendees and workers alike, Electric Forest is a name to recognize, and certainly this year it will yet again measure up to that reputation. E Forest is this weekend, June 27-30, in Rothbury, Michigan. And of course it is sold out.
The jam-packed weekend boasts four main EDM headliners and three sets of the forest’s favorite band, The String Cheese Incident, throughout, complimented by a massive gathering of supplemental headliners and supporting artists. The schedule is out, and everyone is already planning their musical enjoyment routes for the duration of their stay.
Odesza headlines Thursday night at Ranch Arena with heavily danceable ambience in song, opened by Gramatik’s heavier glitch bass. Sherwood Court will have some funky jams rocking with bands like Tauk and Spafford before EOTO’s improvised live instrumental EDM finishes the night. The String Cheese Incident and Lettuce will be laying down their well-known grooves on the Jubilee stage throughout as well.
Friday Kygo takes the festival further into tranquil house mode at Ranch Arena right after String Cheese plays an extended set likely to blow minds. STS9 will be creating their unique and special space for a highly anticipated crowd at Sherwood Court. A very heavy but refined Bass Rush-curated event will be taking place on Tripolee, with some top DJs including Digital Ethos, Ivy Lab, Charles the First and Caspa. Brandon ‘Taz’ Niederauer is one of the youngest guitar shredders out there, and he plays the Observatory. The Honeycomb will be hosting a Her Forest Women’s Circle, which is an example of how much E Forest cultivates one of the most collectively balanced festival environments around.
Bassnectar day is what many excited partiers will be exclaiming during the tense moments leading up to those bass drops. Forest always gets a good set. Saturday will have another extended String Cheese jam to prepare for this as well, after T Pain, whose crowd will surely be looking forward to. Sherwood Court will have no shortage of bass, dubstep, and glitch during the day with Minnesota and Opiuo. Jaenga plays Tripolee; many festival-goers may recognize him from the traveling DJ bus last year. Jantsen and Charles the First are also playing sets at Jubilee, which will no doubt be worthwhile. Closing the night, people can find more bass wobbles at Sherwood with Ganja White Night or more bouncy funk jams at Jubilee with Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. Her Forest will be having a series of performances in the silent disco through the night as well. There will even be a beat-boxing showcase at the Honeycomb stage. For those who simply need Grateful Dead songs, which will be many, there is Grateful Shred in the Observatory.
Sunday Zeds Dead plays their gloriously heavy dubstep at Ranch Arena, then Twiddle rolls in with mellow jams at Jubilee. Twiddle is preceded by Govinda’s violin solo glitch-dub and Random Rab’s melodic beats. Honeycomb has a full set on the Honeycomb stage, along with Handmade Moments, after the Her Forest Humanity Circle. Carousel Club will be hosting a more than solid band from Baltimore, Litz, along with an eclectic ’90s hip hop tribute later that night. Boombox and The Floozies will be funking up the party at Sherwood, and Dixon’s Violin closes out Observatory.
These artists in such a well-fostered lineup and schedule must push the boundaries of exquisite festival planning along with its execution, which we look so forward to appreciating, as we have done in years past. The visual artists and all of the production work set forth to display such creative beauty shall no doubt compliment all the performances to levels of magnificence we have only begun to scratch the surface.
Happy Forest!