Not really on topic but oh well... haha...
I went to Electric Forest not this past year but for the 2 before that, and plenty of other events including one festival so far this summer... honestly I'm just getting burned out on that festival/rave life. In my teens and 20's I was all about it... traveling around to shows and getting crazy f@#!ed up and hearing bands and dj's and stuff but while I'll always be a rave / festi kid at heart, I just don't have the heart for the lifestyle anymore lol. Not only do I feel old as f@#! going to those events (even though there's plenty of people my own age or older) I just don't experience the
novelty anymore. I can definitely see why some people would love it though, especially if they are younger, more social, and/or less experienced.
Toxic, I do agree with you on the U.S. EDM 'bass music' thing though. EDM sucks and most of the popular shit played at events these days is craaaaap… Europe definitely has a better electronic scene IMO. And Japan. And basically anywhere but the U.S... the U.S. scene has good stuff, don't get me wrong, but it's just drowned out by crap like dubstep and big room house and other stuff that I can't stand. I DJ here at house parties occasionally in town and I'm literally the only dude in town who plays techno, who plays electro, who plays breaks, who plays acid, trance, goa, psytrance, etc. 90% of the DJ's here play dubstep or some dubstep subgenre. There's one guy who plays D&B/jungle/neurofunk, and like 2 guys who play some decent house although not not 100% the kinda house that I'm into, which is proper deep house (not this new shit pretending to be deep house), acid house, New Jersey / New York house, etc. This is a problem in most of the places I've been in the last several years as well, which are mostly in the Midwest since I don't travel too far anymore. (Can't afford it!) The scene has become very homogenized, bland, myopic, cookie-cutter, rehashed... in my opinion. I still have a bunch of buddies who go to every event they possibly can and save money all year long for summer so they can go rage out. To that I say: meh.
Anyway, just rambling here but I guess I just wanted to chime in and say that it sounds like you're having a lot of fun Toxy but I couldn't do it. I'm not into any drugs anymore whatsoever aside from shrooms once in a blue moon and I also have found myself disliking being around huge crowds of people more and more the older I get... last summer I ate shrooms probably once a week for the whole summer and while it was kinda fun at first, by the end I found myself thinking that I just wanna be done with it all because - as surprising as it is for me to say this given my past - I think that sobriety is actually way more fun than being intoxicated, especially when you've already experimented with basically all of the drugs lol. I think that one of my two main gripes about most big events are:
1. the people - basically they either ramble on incoherently about dumb revelations they're having while tripping balls, or they do nothing but talk about drugs, where to get the drugs, who has the best drugs, what drugs they have, what drugs they've done... ffs who cares
2. The productions are way more theatrical than they used to be. When I think of a rave I don't think of gigantic screens and 10 million watt lasers and shit, with effigies and animatronics and whatnot. I think of a super dark room that is fogged out with very minimal lights that are sporadic... I don't wanna be able to see 3 feet away from me. Dark and smoky, baby. I wanna feel like I'm lost. Like I'm alone. I don't wanna be looking at a bunch of sweaty wooks grinding their teeth and smoking blunts lol
I have a bunch of great memories from festivals and stuff though, met some cool people, had some very shady and unprotected sex, took part in lots of shenanigans... it was a good time but at this point in my life I am definitely appreciating HOME. Peace and quiet. No more living on the road! Fuuuuuck that. Being homeless is wack. I've been homeless a couple of times and the shit sucks.