Pacific Festival Video Recap

Check out what you missed at the third annual Pacific Festival at The Dunes in Newport Beach...soundtrack courtesy of Poolside.

Pacific Festival Posts Set Times

Pacific Festival announced the set times for their solid cast of electronic, indie rock and quasi pop artists.   Get your tickets here and use discount code 'supergoodmusic' for $5 off.

Pacific Festival Posts Set Times

Pacific Festival announced the set times for their solid cast of electronic, indie rock and quasi pop artists.   Get your tickets here and use discount code 'supergoodmusic' for $5 off.

Pacific Festival Preview: Poolside

Fun and water loving "daytime disco" act - Poolside - bring their talents to the beach this coming weekend at Pacific Festival.  Before they get their feet in the sand they also make a pit stop at The Echo on Wednesday night.  You can still get tickets to the former by clicking here (use code supergoodmusic for a $5 discount), but The Echo show is more or less sold out (there will be a few walk ups allowed).

And its sold out with good reason as the increasingly popular duo have been riding a wave since the release of "Pacific Standard Time" in July.   The summer smanger includes the chilled out, slo-mo electrogaze "Slow Down", their original hit "Do You Believe?" and 14 other juicy tracks highlighted by shiny synths, based-out chill grooves, lo-fi vocals and infused with that SoCal ethos and chill swagger that makes it the perfect soundtrack for hanging out next to a pool....

Pacific Festival Post Fact - Part 2 (recap by ZSE)

Part 1 of my Pacific Festival review consisted of acts that performed during the day. Part 2 below consists of acts that performed at night.

After Calvin Harris got the party starting on the main stage, Steve Aoki continued the party with his bangers ranging from "Turbulence" to his stellar remix of "Pursuit of Happiness." He had by far the greatest stage presence. Here's my favorite song he did, his remix to Kid Cudi's "Pursuit of Happiness".

Pursuit of Happiness (Steve Aoki Remix)

After seeing Aoki, I scrambled over to see Aussie house duo Bag Raiders. They were one of the up-and-coming acts I was most excited to see. What I didn't expect was that their sound would be so exceptional, not only with the instrumentals but the vocals as well. "Way Back Home" appeared to pump the crowd up the most as the duo both were banging on drums and the catchy chorus was hot and dope!

Bag Raiders - Way Back Home

After Bag Raiders, we went back to the main stage to see Ghostland Observatory. If you're looking for a group that not only sounds good but has amazing visual effects as well, look no further than Ghostland Observatory. While I don't remember all the songs they performed, I won't forget the amazing light show and lasers during their performance, which made their set pretty much amazing. Here's my favorite song I heard from them live, "Midnight Voyage".

Midnight Voyage - Ghostland Observatory

Ghostland was a great pick me up act for west coast hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg. Even though we had to wait over 30 minutes for Snoop to get on stage, his performance was off the chain. Seriously Snoop Dogg is a legend and if you're a fan of hip-hop, you must respect Snoop's music, his swagger and his status. He played mostly his older tracks, which I personally loved and while there was a couple older tracks he didn't play ("Deep Cover" and "Gz and Hustlers"), he still was great. Here's video we got of his performance:

Lastly Australian act Cut Copy came to the stage as headliners of the festival. I was surprised as anybody why Snoop Dogg wasn't the closer, but after seeing Cut Copy jam out with the energy they had, I left with a great appreciation for Pacific Festival and their scheduling. I enjoyed almost every song Cut Copy did and really absorbed the energy from lead vocalist Dan Whitford. Here's my favorite song from Cut Copy, "Take Me Over", just a great song for a road trip or any other adventure you embark on.

Cut Copy - "Take Me Over"

Review Post by Zach Siegal Eisman (BeforeTheBigs)

Pacific Festival Post Fact - Part 1 (recap by ZSE)

After being anointed with my VIP Press/Media pass courtesy from the organizers of Pacific Festival, I proceeded into the festival and went to see Hanni El Khatib on the Pacific stage. I'd intended on listening to him perform a few songs from his set as I wanted to walk around the festival and get an idea of where I would be spending most of the day. I was struck by the first song I heard, which was his best, the rocking "Build. Destroy. Rebuild." Here's "Build. Destroy. Rebuild".

Hanni El Khatib- Build. Destroy. Rebuild.

After Khatib and orienting myself to the festival grounds, I saw !!! (chk chk chk), a dance-punk group whose lead singer had incredible stage presence. He connected with the crowd and elevated the energy by getting off the stage and dancing/walking his way to the first 75-100 fans in the front rows. Their energetic and animated performance definitely earned my respect.

AM / FM by ChkChkChk

Disco-house duo Poolside were still dropping beats after !!! finished, so I jogged and caught the last song of their set. Although I don't remember what that song was, here's "Do You Believe" which I assume they played.

Poolside - Do You Believe

Poolside overflowed into The C90s - who performed on top of the shagedelica bus, that was covered with white fur on nearly all of the interior and exterior of the bus. It was an interesting site to see and getting access to dance on top the bus while The C90s performed Disco/Electronica/Dance was a unique experience! Here's "Shine A Light".

Shine A Light by TheC90s

Read more for my review of three of my favorite acts during the day, Fred Falke, Phantogram and Calvin Harris.

Afroman at Pacific Festival

Although best remembered for his Grammy nominated "Because I Got High" record, Afroman's "Colt 45" was another anthem when I was in college. It never achieved the chart topping status of the former - but I do hope he performs the latter at Pacific Festival!


Afroman - Colt 45 by bobbypulanu

By the way, enter our Pacific Festival Ticket giveaway contest by tweeting out @supergoodmusic @pacificfestival and mentioning a reason you want to go to the Festival!

Rookie Festival Makes Splash - Pacific Festival a Relative Success

EC Twins

Mike Tunney - Pacific Festival Organizer

SUPERGOODMUSIC.com spent part of this past holiday weekend in the slightly warmer Orange County for the 1st ever Pacific Festival. Put together by Mike Tunney and friends and featuring two distinctly different days of music, one electro and one reggae-dub soul, I thought it was well worth my time.

Day 1 definitely caught the attention of more Los Angelenos. This should come as no surprise as it was headlined by Dim Mak's Steve Aoki, hosted by Mark The Cobransake, and featured a host of rising talent from the indie-electro-dance scene. From Classixx to Miami Horror to Dan Sena to EC Twins to all the fellas from Guns in The Sun - there was something new to be turned on to. The performances of Rob Roy and Chiddy Bang also brought in some much needed hip-hop downtime when the performances transitioned from outside to inside at the Sutra Lounge. In addition to Aoki, there were also heavyweights The Sounds and Alan Braxe, as well as a planned SILENT DISCO to ensure fans stayed until the end of the night.

Chilling w/ Kenya from Guns in the Sun

Chiddy Bang

And fans did stay. I exited shortly after Them Jeans came on at 1 am to a packed lounge of people barely capable of standing. The 21+ festival crowd was definitely in effect, especially in the VIP section, where the bar was all you can drink. For a mere $45, you could upgrade from regular admission to the inspiring black-out extravaganza that was VIP. While that unbridled access to alcohol may not have been the best way for the organizers to make money, it certainly gave the fans something to be excited about in addition to the music......and excited they were. The sloppiness went from about a 4 to a 9 or 10 between five and eight pm.

Intoxicated Concert Goers

Having agreed to provide press coverage (like this post), SUPERGOODMUSIC was able to catch some dope performances and snap some choice pics, all starting with Classixx on the main stage. The rising LA duo, who have released material on Dim Mak records, treated the crowd to a host of remixes including their excellent version of Listzomania which, in our opinion, should have been featured on the Wolfgang Amadeus Remix album (it is not).

Classixx

Miami Horror

After Classixx, Miami Horror made what I believe is their first festival appearance for a live band, or at least their first festival appearance anywhere remotely close to LA. The quartet brought a lot more energy to the stage than Classixx, in no small part because they play live instruments as opposed to computers. Benjamin Plant, the major brains behind Miami Horror, was all over the place - from playing wooden blocks to climbing the support beams and hanging off the side of the stage. They played their recognizable songs and then some other tunes that I'm hoping are on their album, Illumination, which was released on August 20th.

The Sounds followed before Aoki took stage, but I didn't catch much of their performance. I was scrambling around trying to figure out where other stages were, chopping it up with the Guns in The Sun crew and figuring out that press access did not include VIP admission. Although organization was not the festival's forte, at least they did realize that allowing press to get knee deep in booze probably wouldn't facilitate coherent or accurate feedback.

Steve Aoki

Nonetheless, SUPERGOODMUSIC negotiated their way into some free libations and took in Aoki's dance party from afar before moving in close for pictures and a potential champagne shower. With his mom and friends on stage, Aoki sprayed bottles of bubbly, facilitated crowd surfing and tossed around his signature long hair from behind the boards. Sporting a typical Aoki outfit of tanktop and hipster shoes - he paraded back and forth across stage inviting up a few carefully selected guests for their minute of festival fame, including this girl:

After Steve Aoki, the expected Skull Candy sponsored Silent Disco just never manifested. While that was extremely disappointing (silent discos are really f'ing cool), I was pleasantly surprised to find the Guys and Dollas party animals, EC Twins, throwing down in the Sutra Lounge. Their on stage excitement and enthusiasm definitely infected the crowd, and before you knew it, the room was at capacity for their blended dance anthems. The night continued with performances from Rob Roy, Chiddy Bang, Alan Braxe and Them Jeans, whose set we unfortunately missed.

Chiddy Bang

Unlike most Day 1 attendees, we returned for Day 2. The paradigm shift from indie-electro to reggae-dub-soul certainly did not offend SUPERGOODMUSIC's sensibilities because the headlining act for Day 2, Rebelution, is one of the hottest items on the reggae-dub soul scene. Although we didn't come down as early - we certainly were not going to miss Rebelution.

Boasting a tight young nucleus of talent (the band consists of four young to mid 20's charmers who met at UCSB), Rebelution has been putting on amazing performances long before and ever since their second album, Bright Side of Life, dropped in August 2009. Avoiding the sophomore slump, Bright Side of Life reached #1 on Billboard's reggae charts and obtained a #3 spot on i-tunes top albums downloaded, and has provided the fuel necessary to oil this band's touring machine. With spots at almost every festival this summer, from Summer Camp to Wakarusa to All Good to Lollapalooza, Pacific Festival was lucky to score them at the end of the tiresome run.

Eric from Rebelution

Expendables

The band (Rebelution) definitely delivered on their hype - bringing their dub-soul fire for almost 100 minutes on Sunday night when they took the stage after Expendables (who were good - but not quite as good as their Sunset Strip Music Festival performance at The Roxy). Rory (keys) and Wesley (drums) played cleanly from behind their respective instruments, while Eric (vocals, guitar) and Marley (bass) provided the eye candy, energy and lyrics up front. The quartet served up crowd pleasers from both Bright Side of Life and their first release, Courage to Grow, to close down the festival, inviting pseudo-rastas to spark it up on songs like "Green to Black," before smashing it with their bass heavy encore of "Safe and Sound" (Marley brought it on SaS).

Eric & Marley of Rebelution

As most festivals due in their earliest years, Pacific Festival probably lost money. In a tough economy - it would be hard to expect major returns from a first foray into multi-day event production. The absence of massive corporate sponsors (no major brand sponsor although Skull Candy and a few other companies did appear to sponsor the event at some level) and the presence of unlimited drinks for VIP, also probably did not help the Festival's bottom line.

All that said, Pacific Festival has a lot of positives to take from their rookie year, including a good foundation to build on and a client base that seemed pleased with their experience.

We had a great time and hope the festival is back for year 2 :D

You can see more pictures of our experience here - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=498751&id=255784860346&ref=mf

Pacific Festival - OC: Day 1 Sample Pics (MORE TO COME)

EC Twins

The Sounds

Chiddy Bang

Miami Horro

We're about to head off for Day 2 to catch the Dub-aliciousness of Rebelution, Expendables and friends, but we thought we'd dose you fans with a little bit of the great pics we snapped yesterday at the wild Day 1.

From Classixx to Miami Horror to Steve Aoki (crowd surfing video on our youtube page!) to Braxe in the Sultra Lounge - the artists threw it down hard and the crowd ate it up. Here's some of what we saw....

Rob Roy

Classixx

Miami Horror

Steve Aoki