Time Warp, an annual electronic music festival in Mannheim, Germany, represents all the worst things EDM culture has become. But before I get into the poor safety conditions, the utterly depressing morning after, and the most antisocial ravers I have ever seen, I’ll start with the one good part: the music.
I arrived around 12:30 p.m. and instantly started swaying to RØDHÅD’s dramatic buildups fading into understated dubstep beats. Behind him were extraterrestrial-looking designs, and the sound effects made me feel like I was inside an alien-attack arcade game. Then, Dubfire’s psychedelic set hypnotized me with low, growling vocals and crashing wave sounds as fish swam over the screen.
Next door, glowing red fangs appeared to swallow the stage where Chris Liebing performed, and beams of light shot down from the ceiling like lasers darting to high-pitched percussion.
But the highlight of the festival (or at least the pre-9 a.m. portion, because how does anyone make it past that point?) was Nina Kravitz’s set. Behind her were projections of bats, spiders, cobwebs, and ghosts. Some of the music gave off an appropriately witchy vibe, with menacing whispers and operatic instrumentals. Other portions transported us to a rainforest, with chirping and waterfall effects. At one point, she mixed Da Hool’s “Met Her At The Love Parade,” an ode to Germany’s famous (though now-defunct) EDM parade. We had to wait for ten minutes just to make it into the hall, once again proving that EDM’s gender problem does not result from a lack of good women DJs.
The first and second stages were connected, and if you stood in the underpass between them, you could catch two sounds at once, blending the tunes just by moving your body. I lingered there to hear the clash between Adam Beyer’s haunting orchestrals and Richie Hawtin’s upbeat, futuristic synths.
If you spent the entire time staring at the stages, the event lived up to its expectations. But aside from the fact that this would probably be a safety hazard due to the heat, that’s not all I go to music festivals for. I go to meet interesting people and make meaningful memories with them. And that’s where Time Warp fell flat, big time.
When my boyfriend and I asked to sit next to a group, they side-eyed us as if to ask why we would talk to them and turned away. We tried again with a guy sitting alone against a wall, but he’d passed out before we could open our mouths. Excluding those I came with, only three people spoke to me: one to apologize for burning a red circle onto my hand with his cigarette, and two to ask if I had ecstasy on me. When a festival runs from 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday to 2 p.m. on a Sunday, drugs go from a fun addition to a survival strategy. And people barely survived.
During my first attempt to get water, the stand only carried beer, so I had to find a new one. Once I did, they were out of water bottles and could only sell me a small cup. Meanwhile, just the feeling of my ponytail on my neck was unbearable, and I had to step outside every few minutes to escape the heat. Equally often, I saw someone escorting a semi-conscious friend out. At one point, smoke filled my lungs and trains of people flooded out coughing. Throughout the night and into the morning, I witnessed stretchers carried into the first aid tent.
I remember at the end of EDC Vegas last year, buses and cars lined up to bring us home. In the one I entered, someone put on Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” and we all stood up and danced our way home. After EDC, everyone looked thrilled. After Time Warp, they looked defeated. That festival ate us alive and spit us out with blank expressions on our faces and giant bags under our eyes. I have never seen a sight as dreary as the zombies silently retreating from the concert halls to the Porta-potties that morning.
As an American expat in Germany, the party scene has been one of the biggest culture shocks. I now go out when I used to come home. I’ve grown accustomed to the orange and blue swirls of crushed pills on club floors. Along with an aversion to “commercial” music that makes them scoff at the DJs filling Vegas clubs, Europeans treat EDM like some extreme sport you must make your body suffer to take part in.
Maybe I’m just not well-versed in the art of raving. But I guess I’m OK with that. I’m still firmly in the camp that we can appreciate electronic music without sacrificing fun, safety, health, or camaraderie. And why not admit it: I’m not above that involving Justin Bieber.
It’s June 2016 and I’m testing how low I can get before breaking down. I’ve worked until midnight and gotten up at four to churn out more writing assignments. Seeking comfort from the stress, I reach for the chips in my cupboard, eat more than I intended, panic, and make myself throw up. Unable to focus on an empty stomach, I do it all over again. I move my laptop to Starbucks and order iced cold brew after iced cold brew, telling myself to focus until I’ve finished my 18th article of the day. My stomach feels like negative space.
I write a resignation email for my most stressful job and fantasize about sending it, knowing I’ll never have the courage. I don’t need the money, but the thought of turning down work makes me recoil. I must be successful and success means more bylines and more money.
This is a pattern I’ve become all too familiar with. But at least this time, I have something to look forward to. After another four hours of sleep and 15 articles, I’m headed to Vegas for Electronic Daisy Carnival, an electronic music festival I’d never heard of until the press trip invitation arrived in my inbox.
To accommodate my crazy work hours, I fly in the night before and pull an all-nighter. I sign in for my shift at 3 a.m. from a casino cafe and churn out 7 articles until it ends at 11. Just when I think I’m done, my editor keeps me late to post an update on the Orlando alligator attack.
Meanwhile, a college friend’s blowing up my Facebook chat, begging me to join her in Ibiza in two weeks. I can’t because of this goddamn job. Getting time off is impossible.
Skrillex and Diplo’s “Where Are U Now” wakes me up from a three-second, sitting-up nap. Emboldened by the catchy riff punctuating Justin Bieber’s refrain and fantasies of Ibiza opening parties, I write another resignation email. This time, I type my supervisor’s email address in the “recipients” box.
I still can’t hit “send,” but getting close makes me feel wild. I pack up, put on a tiny $3 romper, and walk along Las Vegas strip. As I pass Serendipity and hum along to Calvin Harris’s “This Is What You Came for,” I visualize myself lounging by the fountain, eating over-priced, calorie-packed ice cream. That would be self-indulgent. Unproductive. Bad. Glorious. Free. How freeing it would be to be bad. I don’t dare enter, but the thought alone loosens my mental shackles.
Something has to change this weekend. Either life as I know it will be destroyed, or I will. Either the part of me that forbids eating ice cream and dropping work will die, or the part of me that wants it will. I secretly root for the former.
As I enter the Las Vegas Motor Speedway that night with a parade of EDM heads in wings, animal faces, and bathing suits, that little voice in me that wants to fuck work and go be an ice cream eating fairy kitten princess says, “Hey, there. I missed you.” I pass giant glowing flowers, foreboding owl statues, and a tiny schoolhouse where people are coloring. This is the closest thing adults have to Disney World.
My pace picks up. I don’t know where I’m running, only what I’m running from: everything outside this land over the rainbow the Nevada dust had dropped me in.
In a pavilion where Russian DJ Julia Govor is playing, I make timid, barely detectable movements, flashing back to middle school dances. Then, I see a dude doing a little catwalk in a floor-length fur coat and bull horns.
Oh, OK, so nobody gives a fuck. This is not middle school. This is not a networking event. Toto, we’re not in New York City anymore. No matter what I do, someone next to me will be crazier.
But nobody’s judging the crazy person either. I want to be the crazy person. The one people compare themselves to so they can shed their misdirected shame. I run from stage to stage doing exaggerated moves I learned in zumba class or ballet or wherever the hell I picked them up. I smile at everyone, not caring if they smile back, but they do.
A cute guy intercepts me to ask where the bathrooms are. I tell him I don’t know, and his glance lingers on me. “Can I kiss you?” he asks.
“Sure,” I shrug, because why not, and we make out amid the blending cacophony of DJ sets. He gives me his number and tells me to let him know if I come to LA.
I can’t believe this is actually a way to live, I think. This is a world where I don’t have to prove anything to be accepted. Where I don’t need a pretentious OKCupid profile to get a kiss. Where don’t need a job to feel good about myself. Where my only job is to have fun.
The next morning, I hit “send.” Three minutes later, my boss asks if she can change my schedule to keep me. Maybe, I think, but not if that rules out Ibiza. “I’ll come,” I Facebook chat my friend.
On the bus to the next day’s festival, I spot a woman with rainbow hair. I see something in her I want to bring out in myself, so I sit beside her and recount my spontaneous makeout sesh.
After flirting with a new guy in line, I see her again at Anna Lunoe’s show. Then, as the neon lights glow against the blackening sky, she gives me molly on a rooftop overlooking the ferris wheel.
On my way back to the stage, the guy from the line asks why I didn’t answer his text. I hug him and walk on, throwing off my shirt. I can do better.
I meet the LA guy by the bathrooms, and we make out again. After chugging his water bottle, I say with honesty I didn’t know was in me that I’d like to go off by myself again. Stupid boys. I’ll have more fun alone because I’m fun. I’m a fairy kitten princess, dammit.
I merge with a crowd jumping and shouting through JAUZ’s mix of System of a Down’s “BYOB.” This is the best moment of my year, I think, and then I think about how contrary that is to everything I believed. The thing that made me happiest was not when my income hit six figures or when I published 20 articles in a day or when I lost five pounds or even when Whoopi Goldberg discussed my writing on The View. It was when I was was doing something so incredibly unimpressive (unless screaming “why do they always send the poor?!” louder than anyone else is impressive). Maybe you don’t have to suffer for the best things in life.
The next day, I realize that in an attempt to film the festival, I accidentally recorded my trip. “The themes in my life,” I listen to myself telling my rainbow-haired friend, “are discipline and deprivation. Whether it’s food or work, it’s all the same.”
When I hear that, I know hanging onto that job would be just as destructive as hanging onto my disordered eating. As Anna Lunoe and Chris Lake’s “Stomper” fills my hotel room, I tell my boss that if she wants me to stay, she has to pay me more. As I anticipated, she can’t.
I panic with the urge to go work on other jobs to make up for that one’s loss. Instead, I return to Serendipity, get an ice cream sundae, and don’t throw it up or keep eating after I’m full. I chuck the half-empty cup in the trash and call up a guy I’ve been crushing on as I walk along the strip. Then, I stop inside Sephora and buy makeup, something I’d always considered too indulgent. On the way, a guy sees my arm band, says “EDC fam!”, and hugs me like we’re long-lost relatives.
Over the next two weeks, I jog around my neighborhood listening to Elliphant’s “Not Ready”:
“I guess I’m not ready for reality / A young woman in a new world / I have a big responsibility / to live life wild and free like a bird / Now is the time to be dancing.”
My first night in Ibiza, as Chris Liebing fills the Amnesia opening party, I ask a German guy I would’ve deemed too hot for me before if I can bite him. We fall in love in just two days, and I leave in tears. But on the plane home, I realize New York and I are over anyway. I’m going to travel the world like I’ve always told myself I couldn’t, and Germany’s my first stop. I spend my flight to Dusseldorf transcribing an interview with Mexican DJ Jessica Audiffred, who told me,
“People want to experience a festival. People want to get crazy. They just want a place where they can let their emotions go. They just want to have fun. They just want to get wild and electronic music can give that and a lot of other things. Just to be in the festival scene, you realize why people go. You realize why people are interested. I think electronic music is a way for people just to be free and just to be themselves and have fun and let everything go.”
Slowly, my inner fairy kitten princess takes power back from the workaholic, money-driven person I never wanted to be. Now, nine months since EDC, I’m partying in a new country practically every month, I haven’t made myself throw up since last summer, and am still with the guy from Amnesia. And I’ve got rainbow hair.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]The right photo was taken the week before EDC; the left was taken the week I arrived in Germany.
My world used to extend from the Kips Bay studio apartment where I worked myself to the bone and stuffed my face to the 28th Street Starbucks where I filled my empty stomach and heart with cold brews. Now, it’s expanded through the beaches of Ibiza, the nightclubs of Berlin, the casinos of Vegas, and the Brooklyn clubs I used to pass by because I was “too busy.”
But there’s much more fairy kitten princess left in me, telling me to chuck it all and be a DJ, and she grows louder every time I hear “Stomper.”
