EOTO | Gowhere Hip Hop

North Coast Day 1 Recap

JPOOS posted Tue, 2012-09-25 10:31

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The expectations were set high in Chicago for North Coast Music Festival and it's safe to say that they were met and exceeded. There were reports of Hurricane Irene coming north and putting a damper on the weekend, but luckily on Friday the only thing we got was a very small drizzle. This left plenty of energy to be spent by Chicagoans to dance and party for "Summer's Last Stand." A few acts took the stage during the early afternoon but the party really got started at about 6:00 PM when Two Fresh and Midnight Conspiracy took to a couple of stages and began warming people up for the night. The temperature was scorching and it was as humid as hell itself but as the sun started going down during these sets you could feel the mood at Union Park changing, it was time to get down. Two Fresh was one of the more impressive undercards of the weekend with fresh hip hop remixes along with electronic beats, it made for a good warm up for the night ahead. After these guys got done settin the mood it was time for EOTO to really get things going. EOTO consists of two brilliant musicians and members of The String Cheese Incident. Michael Travis and Jason Hann have the ability to do something with dubstep that very few other artists in the scene can, improv for an entire set. Watching these two percussion gurus get down on some electro beats was quite the site to see. Along with EOTO, the final undercard of the night was Papadosio. These guys do such a great job of blending so many styles, their shows are really a fusion of everything this scene is about. For people that wanted to see some good old fashion instruments instead of the more electronic EOTO, Papadosio was the place to be. After EOTO it was time for the headliners to come out and show everyone what all of the hype with North Coast was all about. The main headliners of the night were Axwell and STS9. This gave an option to people that were there for the more electronic DJ house sounds of Axwell or the more electro-jam fusion that STS9 uses both instruments and computers to make. If you had been at North Coast the previous year, or are even somewhat into the electronic and jam music scenes then you know that Sound Tribe Sector 9 ALWAYS brings the heat. They played to the biggest crowd of the whole weekend except for Pretty Lights on Sunday, but we'll talk about that another time. They started things off with a new song of theirs, "20-12" and segued into the title track off of their newest album, "When The Dust Settles." The set also included old school Sector 9 jam, "T.W.E.L.V.E". and one of my personal favorites, "Really Wut." The show was a basically standard festival setlist for STS9 but the songs were well played. The well played songs and new innovations that lighting enginner Saxton Waller brings to the table every time made this show one of the highlights of the weekend, as STS9 always is. The first day of the festival was incredible and it was just the beginning of what was a weekend that won't easily be forgotten. Check the video above of EOTO throwin down some funky dubstep, and shoutout to our homie Oren Amzaleg over at Oren A Photo for the pics below and helpin us cover the festival and gettin some great shots. Much more to come from the weekend.