Saturday, October 5, 2013

TomorrowWorld was legen- wait for it..

dary. I drove down to TomorrowWorld last Sunday. It was a little West of Atlanta, so about a 2 hour drive. Hardly any of my friends have even heard of it. I was saying that it's the biggest Electronic Dance Music (EDM for short) festival in America but after looking up some other statistics, it's not the top one. But it's definitely up there. AT LEAST 50,000 people were there - that's 1/3 of the population of Chattanooga. It was by far the largest gathering of people I had ever been a part of.


So do you wanna hear about it or what? I know most of you think 'dubstep' when you think of electronic music but you are WRONG! A lot of the DJ's actually mix popular songs. If I had a taco for every time I heard the Icona Pop "I crashed my car into the bridge. I. Don't. Care. I love it!" song there, then I'd probably go full-on Mexican and wear a sombrero on my head.



Oh, errm..please don't judge me. Moving on now..

Walking in:

I arrived at 11am, but people had been there since Thursday night for the whole festival. It was quite mellow that early in the morning.

Parking was divided into sections using state names instead of letters and I happened to park near Delaware!

It's hard to understand how MASSIVE the grounds were for this festival. In this next picture, you can see the campsites on the right of the boardwalk. Most of the tents in the far background are different stages, including the main one wayyyy in the back.


The campers didn't seem to know the definition of personal space. You were right next to people at all times. Not only are you close to people, but you're within earshot of the stages. I can't image trying to sleep here because I heard that you could hear a bassline from either another tent or a stage at all hours of the day and night.



The People

Ohhh yes, the people. If you think people-watching in the Fort Oglethorpe Walmart is entertaining, you would LOVE this place.There were some outrageously dressed (if at all) people. Some costumes were pretty neat, and unfortunately I didn't see most of those until it was dark which is why I wasn't able to take many pictures.




I did see a guy with a sign that said 'Call xxx-xxx-xxxx if you have daddy issues' with an actual number and I took a picture but I don't want to put that on this blog. Due to my sick sense of humor, I got a great laugh knowing that someone actually wrote that.

The Crowd

I described the festival already, which brings in a wild group of people. But what you need to know is what a crowd at the main stage of TomorrowWorld is like. I'd venture to say this: It's like a giant Harlem Shake that lasts for hours.


(I just had way too much fun watching Harlem Shake gifs)


Seriously! The crowd was on FIRE and the main stage was actually imported from Europe where TomorrowWorld's big sister festival is held.




Sam and I got pretty close to the stage and had a blast. The pictures above were from Nicky Romero performing.


And if you watch this video of the crowd, you'll see why I called it a Harlem Shake. It shouldn't be very loud on your speakers. Also, if you can, watch the next few videos in HD.

17 seconds.
And here is the is the same view but when confetti was launched out into the crowd.

13 seconds.


Here is the stage at night from far away. The lasers were AWESOME.


And my favorite part was all of the dancing at the smaller stages. This guy was absolutely SICK. I really wish I could do what he does. Does anyone out there have videos of themselves doing it? Or know the name of it? It's like an advanced moon walk and I can't get enough.

                                                                          35 seconds.


In conclusion, I had an amazing time. I didn't consume even a drop of alcohol either, which brings me to the last thing I want to talk about in this entry.

The truth about EDM festivals is that they bring out a lot of sin and I mean a LOT. Guys and girls wearing next to nothing, massive amounts of drugs being offered around, and lots of belligerent drunks. As a Christian, I found myself in a conflict. Normally all of this stuff would bother me in a different setting like if I was around town, but I wasn't even phased. I knew what to expect here and I knew I had to divert my eyes as much as possible. But I wasn't feeling sympathetic towards the inner heart issues everyone was having, and that bothered me.

So many people in life chase emptiness or material things that will just fade away. They spend their lives working for things that will make them happy or just the get that next high that will get them through to the next day until they come back to reality and then they do it all again. It's a vicious and empty cycle. The conflict I had was that I REALLY love trance. A lot. I love letting my mind go and feeling the music (insert hippie here) and what it does for me. It's also the only type of music I can dance naturally to. I've loved the ambiance of the sound since I was a kid. So there is my problem: I love the music itself; I don't love what it brings, yet I didn't feel bad about being there when I should.

Victoria, my wife, was able to shine some light on this when I got home (future blog post about her, btw, because she is absolutely incredible). When ANYONE loves something they get tunnel vision, right? Maybe you love fast food no matter how many facts someone gives you about how bad it is for you. Or maybe it's something else. When I thought about this festival and seeing these DJ's, I was tunnel visioned in. The problem with having tunnel vision is that you tend to look past things that can give you a buzzkill. I'll be honest, if I had let myself feel upset because of how those people all around me are living their lives, it would have been a huge buzzkill and I very selfishly didn't want that. I wanted to have a good time.

This made me think back on my life and focus on the times where I have wanted something so bad that I would do or look past anyone and anything to get it. I'm selfish. I'm sinful. So are you. Be careful in the things that you love because you may lose sight of more important things. I love my God and I love my wife. She speaks such wisdom into my heart that no one else can. Biblical wisdom that just simply makes sense (thanks babe!).

So I decided that I will not go to another festival like this. If I began to peel away the selfish part of me, then I may start to feel towards people at a festival again but on a massive scale. If I can think about other people besides myself then I will open myself up to a different mindset. And honestly, I'm scared of that. I'm scared that I will feel the same as I did when I walked through streets of the largest Red Light district in India last year. It was the most uncomfortable thing I've ever done in my life because I felt so much hurt for those women around me and I wasn't able to escape it. Does that mean I'll run away from scary things my whole life? Heck no. But I want to be seeking Christs wisdom so that I know how to approach that in my day-to-day life. I want to help people, I want to see Christ help people. My whole life is a testimony of watching what can happen when I give it to God. You can call BS on that now, but go ahead and keep reading this. Read about my life and see how many things can't be pointed back to anyone but Him.

Anyway, that's enough for now. I spent too much time rambling at the end and don't feel like revising it. I hope everyone has a great week and I hope you enjoyed my update!

-Nate