EDC New York 2016 Day 2 Highlights: Kaskade, Jauz, Nicole Moudaber & More

The second day of EDC New York brought colder temperatures but a more defined identity: the Neon Garden stage emphasized spare throb, while Circuit Grounds focused on hyper-kinetic beats with explosive force, and the two largest stages explored a more pop-friendly sonic palette. Billboard recaps the best moments from the second day in Queens.

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12:55 p.m.: As the train disgorges a horde of hungry dancers at Citi Field, the subway driver wishes everyone luck.

1:38 p.m.: Lauren Lane starts filling out her skeletal tracks – arrhythmia-inducing bass, crunchy two dimensional drums – with big chords, squiggly melodies, and synth arpeggios. Suddenly techno starts to sound more like ‘80s pop, and Lane’s sounds presage the work of acts slated to play later tonight, like Eric Prydz.

1:44 p.m.: “If you’re having a good time already, say yeah!” The day is young, but for Fury and MC Dino, it’s perpetually midnight. Dino raps at reckless pace, showing off speed for speed’s sake. His songs cheerfully demand action – “let’s get dirty!” “Bounce with me!” (The pace is without question too fast for bouncing.) Between tracks, the rapper is nice enough to suggest other possible crowd behaviors: “Feel free to start a most pit!” “Feel free to get naked!”

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2:45: p.m.: The tents have already established clear identities today – the Neon Garden seems on a path full of uncompromising techno. But Thugfucker suddenly deviates from the formula to approximate classic vocal house, playing a song with a pleasantly syncopated beat, lots of melody, and a wafting, high vocal that comes in breathy gusts, like air escaping a balloon.

3:00 p.m.: Party Thieves is in a boastful mood. “We got more people over here than the fucking main stage!” he declares. He programs drums as if he’s probing the earth’s crust for weakness. The planet remains inert, but the crowd moves en masse, spontaneously erupting into rhythmic chants of “hey!” More of these surfaced later when the DJ queued up Jason Derulo’s “The Whistle Song,” though he soon tore the track to shreds with a series of machine gun drum patterns.

3:15 p.m.: One fan wandering the festival grounds is wearing one of Kanye West’s “I Feel Like Kobe” T-shirts. An “I Feel Like Pablo” slicker pops up around 6:00 at the Oliver Heldens’ show, and a different “I Feel Like Kobe” appears during Eph Word. (For those keeping score, Drake was represented by a Views shirt and an OVO sweatshirt.)

3:20 p.m.: Giraffage achieves one of the day’s most creative reimaginings when he plays “All That Matters,” a sludgy yet hyperactive take on Ready For The World’s “Love You Down.” The producer starts splicing in a female vocal to counter the pitch-shifted singing of Ready For The World’s Melvin Riley, inventing a musical conversation. Sudden bursts of harmony around the female voice feel shockingly lush at a festival that prioritizes the lone voice.

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3:30 p.m.: Giraffage is the latest artist to play Alice Deejay’s “Do You Think You’re Better Off Alone?” It’s an old song at this point, but it’s easy to see why it’s been a staple all weekend: the instant the song materializes, everyone begins to sing the synthesizer part.

4:10 p.m.: To counter light precipitation, Don Diablo incorporates a snippet of “Singing In The Rain” in his set along with footage from the movie. An increasingly damp roll of toilet paper hurtles thru the air.

4:23 p.m.: The crowd is thinner than it was at this time yesterday, but these are the listeners undaunted by the elements. During a bass-heavy hour from Hannah Wants, an older fan starts dancing at double time while maintaining a relentless head nod. Wants is aided by the American flag dancers – yesterday they graced Green Velvet’s stage – and a small marching band.

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4:31 p.m.: Herobust’s beats cause a man in a “#vomitstep” t-shirt to lose control of his limbs. The DJ builds to a drop, but then darts sideways by playing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Heads Will Roll.” The bass here suggests a saw cutting slabs of granite to make tombstones – or maybe an especially arduous root canal. A fan holds up a sign featuring Milana Vayntrub, the actress from the AT&T ads: he’s either an industry plant or very committed to the quality of his cell service.

4:35 p.m.: At the end of Don Diablo’s set, a listener dressed up as a young Prince – complete with a halo and angel wings – plays furious air guitar.

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4:51 p.m.: During an especially energetic Mind Against beat, a listener – backpack says, “Fuck Real Life;” sign says, “Don’t Be A Puta Sucia” – heads toward the stage. It makes sense for him to be up front, since that gives him the best spot to promote his personal brand: the back of his sign sports his Instagram handle. 

5:51 p.m.: “I love Oliver Heldens!” a girl declares. “Me too!” her friend replies. Heldens plays a snippet of Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” and then moves into Zhu’s “Faded” (rewired around an Eurythmics’ instrumental). A “whoop there it is” chants starts in the back of the crowd and moves all the way to the stage, a nice reminder of the grass-roots power dynamic at work in dance music. 

6:20 p.m.: The wind is especially intense during Alison Wonderland’s set. She responds with extra volume – and Kanye West’s “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2,” the irrepressible tune that launched Desiigner’s “Panda” into the crossover stratosphere. 

7:28 p.m.: Mid-set, Eric Prydz stops playing and heads backstage. In his absence, the crowd returns to its go-to chant: The White Stripes‘ “Seven Nation Army.” A voice announces that “due to the winds, the show will be postponed for a few minutes.” “That is not lit!” one fan decides. On the bright side, a rainbow appears behind Citi Field.

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7:50 p.m.: Nicole Moudaber’s set is a pile-up: nine giant jellyfish – these are carried around on poles by EDC employees and make appearances at different stages throughout the night – three different banana suits, at least two Mexican flags, and another sign that reads “#technothots.” A different sign borrows Donald Trump’s rhetoric and retools it: “Make America rave again.” Moudaber is a worthy candidate for this cause. 

8:30 p.m.: David Guetta plays “Seven Nation Army” too – this one is getting tiresome, but it never fails to incite a riot – and then makes a more unusual selection, queuing up the ‘60s classic “Bang Bang.” He teases the famous hook and then blasts it away with a beat that careens upward. Behind him on the biggest stage, owl imagery competes with cartoon renderings of a femme fatale.

8:48 p.m.: Jauz provides a more forceful alternative to Guetta, dropping “Kingpin,” R.L. Grime’s boisterous collaboration with Big Sean. Sharks stream behind him on the backdrop, gullets wide and teeth gnashing. Whenever the onstage flamethrowers erupt, it sends a wave of heat across the crowd; this is much appreciated, as the temperature has dropped and the wind remains fierce. 

9:15 p.m.: David Guetta moves in and out of “One More Time,” the old hit from his countrymen in Daft Punk. It still sounds great, especially on the main stage’s walloping sound system, with plenty of satisfying details in the shifting rhythm. Guetta soon buries the track under an avalanche of programming and resets the tone of his set, announcing, “we’re gonna get a little deeper. A little sexier.” 

9:20 pm.: SNAILS drops megawatts of sickening sound design and crushing bass on the circuitGROUNDS while a front row fan wearing a Pikachu hat and a Bane kandi mask somehow manages to headbang, hoist a matching Pikachu stuffed animal and Snapchat himself doing so simultaneously. The Montreal producer is joined on the stage by pinstriped dancers and on the mic by DJ Snake’s MC Aaron Musicaro, who hypes the crowd and dabs along to a remix of Desiigner’s No. 1 smash “Panda.”

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9:40 p.m.: Kaskade takes the main stage after the master of ceremonies returns to tell the crowd, “you’ve arrived in the universe of dreams!” (It turns out it’s cold in that universe too.) Kaskade has all the bells and whistles on his side: fireworks erupt, the 7 train gleams as it runs behind the stage. He plays his hits – “Atmosphere,” “Disarm You” – and encourages the crowd to dance as a way of keeping the cold at bay. For added warmth, one savvy fan wraps herself in a Kaskade flag. 

3:00 a.m.: If your night ended when the festival closed, you missed out on one hell of an impromptu afterparty. Dillon Francis, Excision, Jauz, SNAILS, Ephwurd and Ookay took over the basement of a Mexican restaurant near Central Park for some spontaneous b2b mayhem. Insomniac Events founder Pasquale Rotella came to the rescue with CDJs and a mixer and the artists tweeted out the address to bring a swarm of fans from across the city for laughs and late night revelry.

Partying in a mexican restaurant bassment with @DILLONFRANCIS @datsik @Jauzofficial @Ephwurd

— #EnterSlugzCity (@snailmusic) May 16, 2016

Coming with gear @datsik @snailmusic @DILLONFRANCIS @Excision @jauzofficial Headliners check it .. 240 W 54th St NY pic.twitter.com/5Fm9rWGHx6

— Pasquale Rotella (@PasqualeRotella) May 16, 2016

NYC the party is just starting come thru 240 w 54 st 10019

— JAUZ (@Jauzofficial) May 16, 2016