My Biggest Takeaway from Electric Forest This Year Was Finding True Love
(A story in multiple parts)
It truly never ceases to amaze me, the long-lasting and significant impact that meeting a complete stranger can have on your life. After the transcendental life-saving experience I had on Day One of Electric Forest this year, I didn’t think that the Forest could possibly show me even more magic, but that’s exactly what happened on Day Two.
Going into Electric Forest this year, I had everything planned out. I knew which sets I absolutely could not miss, and I knew that I wanted to spend as much time with my Camp Rabbit Hole campmates as possible, since there were so many new people this year who I wanted to get to know. However, it turns out the Forest had other plans for me, and almost nothing that I had planned out actually ended up happening.
I entered the Forest on Day Two with a handful of my campmates, and we rendezvoused with the rest of our Camp Rabbit Hole family who had gone in earlier to set up hammocks and secure a meeting spot for us. We all went to Sherwood Court to catch Daya’s set, which was amazing, and then we danced our asses off to Gorgon City’s live set right after that. Gorgon City was truly one for the books. One of my favorite moments was looking around at one point during their set and seeing everyone just dancing to their heart’s content and everyone was smiling and laughing and having the time of their lives. It was beautiful.
After Gorgon City ended, my friend Michael suggested that we all go check out the Silent Disco, so we followed him as he led us back into the Forest toward the Silent Disco. When we got to the entrance, however, I suddenly realized that I needed to pee real bad, so I told them that I would rush over and take care of business and then I’d meet up with everyone inside. I hurried over to the nearest set of portapotties and made my way back to the Silent Disco, but by the time I finally made it inside, my friends were nowhere to be found and I couldn’t get a hold of anyone with my phone. I looked around for them, but after a while I figured I’d never find them in there because there were so many other people. So I just went to the center of the crowd and started jamming out by myself for a while.
At one point in my solo adventure, I just happened to look over to my left and this guy just happened to also be looking in my direction. Our eyes met, and we realized that we were jamming out to the same channel and our headbanging was kinda perfectly in sync with each other, so we both smiled and kept on doing our thing, occasionally meeting each other’s gaze again to see that we were still on the same level. Every so often, he would tap me on the shoulder to get my attention and then he would point to his headset to show me that he had switched channels, and without even a second thought I would switch to the channel he was on so that we could continue our little two person dance party in the Silent Disco.
Eventually, he tapped me again and took off his headphones, so I took mine off as well. We both commented on how good the music was and how awesome it was that we were jamming out together the whole time, and then he introduced himself and said his name was Luke. We talked for a bit as everyone else around us continued to dance to their respective channels, and we got to know each other pretty well in that short time. After a good while of talking, he said, “alright, I think it’s time to go back in.” So we both put our headphones back on and continued to vibe with each other all the way until his friends who he was there with decided that they wanted to go see a set at Tripolee.
He turned to me and asked what my plans were for the rest of the night, and I told him I didn’t really have anywhere I needed to be until Kygo’s set at Ranch Arena. So he said, “Well, if you want, you can just come with me and we can keep talking and getting to know each other better.” So I told him, “Hell yeah dude, I am SO down! Thank you for inviting me!” We left the Silent Disco with his friends and started making our way over to Tripolee, were we would end up catching the last bits of Caspa’s set. We had to make a few stops along the way so that his friends could refill their waters and use the restroom, and in those moments Luke and I sat down on the side and continued to talk and get to know each other better.
During one of the restroom breaks, I decided that it was the perfect time to introduce him to PLUR and give him a piece of kandi I had made a long time ago but had never really found the right person to bestow it upon. So we sat there and I went through my whole explanation of PLUR, but it was interrupted when his friends began to rush him to get up and continue the trek towards Tripolee. I didn’t want to hold everyone up, so what was intended to be a simple kandi trade with my explanation of PLUR (I trade kandi differently than most people; I don’t just go through the motions and finish, I stop at each symbol and take some time to explain exactly what it means, what the symbol embodies) ended up becoming this funny thing where we both got up, hands still clasped, and we continued to walk behind his group with his hand in mine as I went on with my explanation of PLUR and why it is so important as ravers.
When I finally finished, I told him about the kandi I was about to give him and how I was glad I met him because I finally knew without a doubt who it was meant to be with. I gave him a kandi single that said “Best Dancer” because the entire time at the Silent Disco he was blowing my mind with how amazing he was at dancing and shuffling. We hugged and he said it was really cool that I took the time to explain all of that to him and that it really meant a lot to him because he knew or had heard about PLUR before but never really fully understood it the way I had explained it to him.
We finally made it to Tripolee and started headbanging and dancing to Caspa’s set and into 12th Planet’s set, but a little while into 12th Planet his brother decided that he wanted to go catch Gorgon City’s DJ set at The Observatory, so we all made our way out of Tripolee and started making our way back into the Forest. The Gorgon City set was happening at the same time as Kygo’s set, and I was pretty conflicted at that point because I really wanted to see Kygo, but I already knew that if Luke ended up going to see Gorgon City, I would follow him and his friends there because I was just enjoying our connection too damn much to say bye, especially when there was no guarantee that I’d end up finding my campmates once I got to Ranch Arena for Kygo.
But then something amazing happened. You see, we had to pass Ranch Arena on the way to The Observatory, and once we got to Ranch Arena and dropped into the middle of Kygo’s set, we were like moths to a flame and the music was so good that we all just stopped at once and started dancing our asses off. I could tell that Luke’s brother had moments where he still contemplated continuing our journey to The Observatory, but I guess the music was just so good and we were all having way too much fun dancing to Kygo that there simply was no leaving until it was all over. I thought it was really cool how that worked out in my favor.
After Kygo’s set ended, all his friends wanted to go back to their group camp for the night, and I was kinda worried that Luke would feel the same, because the closer at Tripolee was Black Tiger Sex Machine and they were one of the sets that I absolutely wanted to see. So I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said that he didn’t really want to go back to camp just yet, so I asked if he wanted to go see BTSM with me. He didn’t really know who they were or what their music was like, so I hyped him up and told him it was going to blow his mind. So we made our way to Tripolee and we ran into his friend Christian along the way, who followed us to BTSM.
BTSM was amazing and Luke and Christian both loved every second of it. As did I, naturally. I especially loved when BTSM dropped some hardstyle towards the end of their set, as hardstyle is my favorite genre of EDM. After BTSM ended, Luke asked me what I was gonna do, and I told him that I wanted to hit up the RV parties at some point but other than that I had no plans. So he said, “Well if you want, why don’t you just follow me to my group camp and we can hang out for a while and then we can hit up the afterparties later tonight?” I was thoroughly enjoying my time with him, so of course I told him I would love that. So off we went, and I got to meet more of his campmates and we hung out at his camp for a bit.
When we got there, he warned me and said “I feel like we might end up just staying here all night chatting and hanging out, but I definitely still want to check out the RV parties.” I laughed and told him that whatever happens, happens, and I’d be more than ok with it because the important thing was that we were getting to spend more time together getting to know each other. We ended up hanging out with his friend Christian in Christian’s car for the rest of the night, and I got to show him the very first track that I produced without telling him at first that it was one of mine. He was loving it, and I got caught off guard and said “Thank you,” to which he stopped for a second and then he asked, “wait, did you make this?” I laughed and told him yes, and he said “Who even ARE you?” and laughed.
Christian ended up having to go look for someone at one point, so Luke and I stayed in his car and continued to hang out and get to know each other. Before we knew it, the sun was starting to come up, and Luke laughed and said “See, I was right...we ended up just staying here all night and now the sun is up!” I told him I had absolutely no problem with how the night turned out, and that everything that had happened was pretty amazing. We decided it was time to try to get some sleep before Day Three, so he told me to text him when I woke up so we could coordinate a meeting spot if I wanted to spend more time with him that day. I told him of course I wanted to spend more time with him, so I said I’d definitely hit him up after I woke up.
In the interest of keeping this story from being several pages long, resulting in an excruciatingly long read for one sitting, I’m going to put a pin in it for now and I will continue the story with the following days’ happenings in future posts.
Thank you for taking the time to read my Electric Forest stories...stay tuned for what happened next to find out why this ended up being my biggest takeaway from the festival, because I promise you this story is not going the way you think it’s going. ;)
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