My mom warned me it tends to rain on Good Friday. Me, I didn’t listen until I was standing at the on the Sloan Park Festival Grounds in Mesa, watching gray clouds gather overhead. Sure enough, they sprinkled me and a few thousand of my best friends at the Breakaway Festival — a massive EDM party that enjoyed the moody ambiance at 4 p.m.
No complaints, though. At least, not at first. During Two Friends set, sprinkles were cute. The rain started dumping during the Chainsmokers’ headlining set. Then the euphoria of jumping up and down with thousands of people wore off. Up next was a 20-minute minute trek to the car, shivering throughout. At an EDM festival where string bikinis, mesh tops and fishnets were the norm, I heard people wailing: Why is it so fucking cold?
And yet, the party went on. Breakaway Festival has been touring the country since 2013, and only now stopped in Arizona, in collaboration with Celsius and Relentless Beats, the promoter for many EDM events in the Valley. Each set delivered danceable energy, unique visuals, and generally good vibes. But it had its pitfalls — some folks need to go to more raves and get a dose of PLUR culture before next year. Here were the lows and the many highs.
Best: sheer variety
After a barrage of dubstep festivals this year, Breakaway Arizona brought progressive and deep house acts to a major Valley venue. But the festival didn’t box itself in as a house festival. The mainstage featured artists like future bass DJ Gryffin and the Chainsmokers, who played a range of classic tracks and remixes of favorites like their 2014 hit “Closer” and Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.” Levity and Two Friends flooded the stage with electrifying visuals and remixes, while sets like Wax Motif, Night Tales and Coco & Breezy brought a smoother, sexier feel to the festival.
Aaron Bannie told Phoenix New Times about their set, which included their single “Come to Me,” a collaboration with Wax Motif. “We brought some unreleased music to our set and we’re just having some fun,” Bannie said. “We wanted to do something that was still emotional, still sexy, but less with words.”
Meanwhile the Launchpad stage offered heavy dubstep sounds through the night from the likes of CYCLOPS and Peekaboo, an instant favorite. And for those who sought a break from it all, the festival offered the Silent Disco stage, offering a customizable rave experience with three different channels for attendees to plug in.
Worst/best: the rain
Everyone who caught that late cloudburst is going to remember their chattering teeth this week. But they’re also going to remember the sheer delirious romance of the hour before, jostling skin-on-skin to scream their hearts out to “Closer” as the Chainsmokers were bathed in the euphoric, hazy light streams during melodic house tracks and jolting neon lasers during more upbeat tracks. Pneumonia be damned, this is why people fall in love with (and at) EDM festivals.Worst: the crowds during the headliners
The more mainstream a festival (particularly in EDM) the more asshole-ry must ensue within the crowd. I watched a group of overly amped men starting shoving matches during Two Friends and a drunk woman who become confrontational during Sofi Tukker. This was more unpleasant behavior than I see at Relentless Beats events. Some of it is the luck of where you are in the pit. But it’s also jerks who need to get schooled in rave culture.
Best: the crowds at every other time
Aside from the jerks, people came to care for one another. Many kandi bracelets and rave trinkets were traded throughout the night: Think clip-on sprouts, tiny glowing frogs and miniature suction-cupped penises. (One attendee was spotted with two on each side of his sunglasses. “Double dicking,” he called it.) The dance floor was a whirlwind, with flow stars in the air, people shuffling and headbanging and pogoing up and down. People made up interpretive dances while others stumbled stuporously. All night, people traded compliments, hugs, dances, and conversations with temporary new besties.Best: free stuff!
Festival tickets started at $129, so the little touches — the sponsored Jimmy John’s truck, the trinkets and sprouts that hung on the wall of the beatbox truck for guests to take and trade, the Celsius packets and samples — were essential to feeling cared for.
Best: the daytime stages
There’s something euphoric about dancing to EDM in good 3 p.m. sunlight while I still have the first wind of the day. On day one, SIDEQUEST brought an almost frat-like energy to the festival, in a good way, with hype girls on stage and the high-energy tracks like the duo’s “Wa Wa Wa” or “SPIN THAT.” When they ended by leading the crowd in singing the lyrics to Post Malone’s “Congratulations!,” everyone left elevated and looking for more.
Coco & Breezy’s set, meanwhile, was both calming and also instantly grooveable. The sisters' tranquil sounds featuring soft house beats, soulful vocal backtracks, and positive and spiritual messages — “I am free, I am loved, I am powerful”— complemented the coolness of their sleek leather jackets and daring visuals. Their Afrocentrism was a refreshing contrast to EDM’s overwhelming whiteness. At one point they projected images of Martin Luther King Jr. on the screen while Gil Scott Heron’s poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” played over their track. During another song, the twins projected pictures of themselves hanging with friends, including women of color. The house music duo noticeably attracted one of the more diverse crowds of the night.
Worst: The dust
For us chronic allergy sufferers, nothing flares up a runny nose like a field of dirt. And that’s very much what the festival grounds at Sloan Park are. Combined with the windy, rainy weather, I needed a half-hour after each evening to sneeze out dirt-coated boogers and occasionally tiny specks of blood. This is really just me complaining, but this is my list, and my suffering will be noted.
Best: the venue
I know, I know, but hear me out. So many EDM events in Phoenix are practically in orbit at remote venues like Chandler’s Rawhide Event Center or Avondale’s Phoenix Raceway. It was nice to go to a major event as (relatively) centrally located as Sloan Park, the Chicago Cubs’ spring training home. There was a decent amount of actual seating to be found on park benches and enough grassy-but-not-muddy areas to sit outside Sloan Park. Shaded areas were especially convenient once the rain came. And the venue had simultaneously enough space to separate the three stages with plenty of space for food and drink vendors, a VIP area, bathrooms, and photo areas, while also being easy enough to navigate from one side to another in a matter of minutes. As the Cubs would say, W.
Best: the fits
Attendees toed the line between nighttime rave fashion and your more traditional daytime festival looks. Many went full cosplay. One man dressed as Link from “The Legend of Zelda.” Another duo dressed up as Woody and Buzz Lightyear from “Toy Story.” One group of four women each had matching red troll dolls for their outfits. Other attendees chose comfort — plain tank tops and T-shirts, jean shorts and capris, sneakers, hoodies, athletic wear. Breakaway Arizona did truly feel like a fashion environment where anything went.Best: the ending
Saturday’s headliners Sofi Tukker and Gryffin both rocked the crowd. Sofi Tukker teased their entrance with multiple samples of their discography before leading in with their single “House Arrest.” The duo played multiple tracks of their album “Bread,” all with a similar groovy, rhythmic energy. Sofi Tukker’s stage presence, their neon lasers and flames, and the accompaniment of their dancers made their set particularly fun.Gryffin’s set was nothing shy of awe-inspiring. The DJ showed his versatility, bringing out an electric guitar for several tracks to create a unique EDM experience. Gryffin's set nailed the feel of the festival: harder house tracks with melodic and progressive house and hints of dubstep, bass, and drum and bass throughout. When his set ended in a blaze of fireworks and lasers, I left ready for Breakaway to hurry back to the Valley.
