Summer’s in LA thrive with everything from evening concerts on the beach to the weekend festivals. For nine years now, HARD Summer has been putting on one of the most well known and loved EDM, and hip-hop, raves of the summer. Lucky for me, I had the opportunity to attend the festival as I have been spending my summer down south in the Los Angeles heat.
On the last weekend of July, I drove over to the Auto Club Speedway in Southern California, where I made a rather quick entrance with VIP parking (which I highly recommend!). The layout of the festival was so large it took me quite a while to figure it out. My favorite stage was hands down the HARDER stage which had some of the audience on the slanted race track and the back half of the audience sitting in the stands (which was a good dancing break without taking a music break).
I stared my adventures on Saturday with Drezo at the HARD Stage followed by the surprising Rezz at the HARDER Stage. Rezz surprised me because I had never heard of her before and she was one of my favorites of the weekend with her grinding, almost punk-rock electronic set. Hip-hop artist Anderson .Paak followed not long after and smashed it on the drums with his band The Free Nationals.
Anderson .Paak and The Free Nationals at the HARDER Stage
The night closed off with Ice Cube who represented his N.W.A crew and kept the crowd bouncing with his classics. The last to go on were duo J2K and Autobot who are well known in the trap music community as Flosstradamus.
Sunday started with Slumberjack who is well known for his remix of What So Not’s “Touched”. Going into the night, Zeds Dead brought out dj Twin Shadow. Following, Dillon Francis started his set with a remix of the Pokemon theme song and then proceeded to stay true to his Moombahton style and keep the audience dancing all through his set. The last and by far my favorite set of the night was Porter Robinson who has been on my list of people I need to see for years now. He did not fail. Porter’s anime influenced visuals and unexpected tempo changes were carefully planned out and perfectly executed! I left the weekend with a huge smile on my face and ready to see what else HARD has planned next.
Keep track of the next HARD event or view the photos from past HARD events with the links below. Cheers!
HARD
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Soundcloud