Dancing Astronaut celebrates its 4-year anniversary at Hakkasan Las Vegas for EDC Week
Rich deep mahogneys and cherry accents line the walls and booths of Hakkasan’s expansive main room. The club, which opened less than three months ago, has quickly established itself as one of the liveliest rooms in Las Vegas, hosting a multitude of the most talented and over-the-top personas in the EDM explosion. As one of the many clubs in Las Vegas to host events for EDC Week, Hakkasan stood out amongst its competition with its labyrinthian assortment of rooms and multiple floors of festival calibre production. From Wednesday night until Sunday evening, the crown jewel of MGM’s recent revival hosted Dada Life, Hardwell, Tiësto, Calvin Harris and Deadmau5; packing out the venue every night with crowds whose sole intention was to embody the mantra of “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
On Wednesday evening, Dada Life led the charge into EDC week – diving headfirst into their bananas and champagne-fueled antics. About halfway through their set it became evident that Stefan and Olle had little concern for the club’s brand new and gorgeous interior, dousing the stage, CDJs and shoulder-to-shoulder crowd in an endless stream of champagne. It wasn’t until hundreds of pounds of feathers were dropped on the crowd that the party officially started, as the well-to-do air of Vegas quickly dissipated in a cloud of feathers and thrashing bodies.
Hardwell and the Revealed Recordings crew showed up Thursday night with their three triangle insignia in tow. An opening set from the mastermind behind “Clobber,” Dannic, did well to prepare the crowd for the heavy electro barrage that Hardwell had locked and loaded in his USB stick. Just as the Revealed Recordings head honcho did at Ultra Music Festival, Hardwell left little to the imagination, working through an impressive selection of hard hitting big room electro and his own patented mash ups. A highlight of the night was his latest “Three Triangles (Losing My Religion)” mash up that takes on a life of its own when blasted through Hakkasan’s state of the art sound system.
“The King” showed up on Friday night with his entourage and dropped an array of tunes that ranged over the entire catalog of his career. This time around his set took a more melodic journey than the usual display of hard hitting progressive tracks and would later come to represent the route he took at EDC Las Vegas.. The highlight of the night for us was when he dropped Quintino & R3hab’s remix of “Chasing Summers.” While his EDC set was one for the ages (not only from a production standpoint, but from a musical sense as well) Tiësto kept us satisfied throughout his two hour set. It was one hell of a warm up for his trip to EDC Las Vegas.
Calvin is most commonly known for his pop crossover tracks that feature Rihanna, Ne-Yo, and other superstar performers but his sets are far more eclectic than his Top 40 persona. Duke Dumont’s “Need You (100%)” made an appearance among some classic Calvin tracks and provoked a massive sing along that was only outdone by the always anthemic “Sweet Nothing.” Halfway through the night, the NERVO twins joined Calvin behind the decks and drove Saturday nights energy through the roof.
Deadmau5’s unhooked set Sunday night was the perfect wrap up to an unbelievably exhausting week. Although Joel showed up without his usual production he did bring a couple of friends, two animatronic mau5bots who brought an exciting change of pace to Hakkasan’s mainroom. Wrapping up a 5-day party in Vegas, unhooked mau5 is always a treat. With early flights home the next morning, mau5 left us bleary-eyed but satisfied, rolling our luggage around the airport not wanting to leave Las Vegas behind. Only 360 more days until EDC Week 2014.
Categories: Music