EDC 2012: Coachella or Electric Daisy Carnival: Which One is Better?

By Dennis Romero Sat., Jun. 9 2012 at 6:31 AM

Christopher Victorio

EDC 2012.

See also: Our Complete Coachella Coverage

Dance music is coming to an arena near you: Kaskade will be the first DJ ever to play Staples Center (July 27). And mainstream concert promoters such as Live Nation are diving into the electronic dance explosion.

Electric Daisy Carnival, which is being held this weekend at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, is the ultimate big stage for DJs. These larger-than-life dance titans, many of whom find as many fans via radio as they do in clubs, provide an over-the-top experience.

It was Coachella that introduced electronic dance music to the contemporary alt-rock crowd, even as EDC brought DJs to the masses. So which is king of the EDM concert world?

Frankly, they're starting to look like each other. Coachella's 2012 dance lineup mirrored that of the previous Electric Daisy Carnival in Vegas: Afrojack, Avicii, Calvin Harris and David Guetta were on both bills.

Christopher Victorio

EDC 2012's main stage.

No wonder we heard that Coachella's promoter, Goldenvoice, had expressed interest in buying EDC.

If we were to vote, however, we'd say the Coachella of old had the right vibe. It seemed to go out of its way to book left-of-center dance acts such as Massive Attack that would never play on the relentlessly bouncy stages of EDC.

Seeing French duo Air perform on a Coachella main stage at sunset? That's about as sublime as it gets.

Unfortunately, in 2010, Coachella went after EDC's audience and booked Tiesto, Deadmau5 and Kaskade. Ravers nearly gatecrashed the show, and things felt out of control at times. We called it "Clusterfuckachella." Really.

Tags:

Coachella, concerts, DJs, EDC, Electric Daisy Carnival 2012, festivals, Kaskade

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KidsThatKilledDisco

EDM is followed by all the shit kids that came into the dance scene too late and prefer their scenes with no black and gays present. Real House wouldn't cut it with these corn fed Johnny and Janey come lately. It has to be wrapped up in the same way as rap and rock was for these kids to 'get it'. It is what it is, pop music, and these kids at EDC are from the same gene-pool that came into Disco briefly at the tail-end of 1979 and made that commercial. Next year half of these lot will branch off to burn MacBook's and controllers in football stadium as they announce Dance Music Sucks!

Cameron Tevis

I agree with most people below, the two are hard to compare.... EXCEPT in terms of the audience. The fans at Coachella were so cool and laid back. EDC had its share of cool, laid back people of course... but they also had their share of stuck up douchebags. Either way, loved both shows.

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Hey Romero, how come everything you touch turns to shit? Just checking. Have fun at the show!

Carlos Cervantes

well said

Alice

Wow LA Weekly. As others have said, the two are incomparable. This is akin to posting an article entitled Which is Better: Chow Mein or Spaghetti... just because they both comprise of noodles. Yes, they are both music festivals, but one has a wider range of music genres (including EDM) whereas the other has always focused primarily on EDM. What makes either event "better" is solely personal preference to styles of music.