Doors opened at 11:00 a.m. sharp as the eager crowd poured into the festival grounds, sprawling out across the green turf and making their way through the wonderland toward the main stage.
Ready to greet the flocking masses, Robinson kicked things off by unveiling his latest side-project, a live-exclusive DJ set billed as Air to Earth. Breezy progressive house and disco rang through the morning sky, and a wonderfully curated selection of Pampa Records cuts (in addition to tracks by artists ranging from Caribou and India Jordan to Phil Weeks) could be heard all the way back at the metal detectors, entrancing newly arrived guests like moths to a flame.
Skrillex — notably absent from this year’s lineup — was represented in spirit through EDM boyband Wavedash. Determined to overcome earlier technical difficulties from stage setup, the trio burst onto the scene with overflowing, amped-up energy. They dove headfirst into their abbreviated 26-minute set, racing from headbangers such as “Dummo Loop” to crowd-pleasing remixes of Eurodance hit “L’Amour Toujours” and Playboi Carti’s “On That Time.” At the tail end of the performance, Wavedash enlisted pop-rock singer James Ivy for a slower, emotive number in “Void; Reciprocate, Love” before closing out with regal dubstep banger “Stallions” in an electrifying fashion.
Rounding out the opening acts, the festival crowd was soon graced by a wonderfully left-field set from KNOWER, the avant-pop duo of Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi. The pair emerged — Cole clad in a bathrobe, Artadi in an instantly iconic “fart loading” t-shirt — and began playing gloriously erratic, breakbeat jams accompanied by animated, cursed-image visuals (which, at multiple points, could aptly be described as penis pandemonium). Songs spanned the essential topics of life, from PSAs about the government watching citizens masturbate and “Butts Tits Money” to bubbly revelries about living solely for the pleasures of pizza.
