Los Angeles’ electronic dance music lovers met up on Rosemead Blvd this weekend to celebrate Hard Summer 2014.
From 12 p.m. to 11 p.m., the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area had about 40,000 roaming attendees in their best rave outfits. The venue featured their HARD stage, HARDer stage, and three colored-named tents: Pink, Purple and Green.
The grassy field was full participants showing off their love to their favorite artists in unique ways. From flags to cardboard head cutouts to explicit banners – fans made sure people knew which artist they were highly anticipating.
Fans had their warning sign black and white flags supporting Flosstradamus’ “HDYNATION” movement, others had Dillon Francis’ strawberry head cut outs from the event’s trailer video and a variety wore baseball jerseys with A$AP Mob logos.
The line up appealed to a wider audience of music enthusiasts.
It went from including all genres of EDM: DJ Snake, Martin Garrix, Nero, Axwell, Kill The Noise, Valentino Khan, Baauer, Carnage, to a rap and hip-hop cross over with A$AP Mob, Pusha T, A-trak, Mr. Carmack, and DJ Mustard, to name a few.
Fans through out both days surrounded the famous ferris wheel and HARD lit up letters, becoming a favorite designated meeting area through out both days. There were food trucks, ice cream stops, a photo booth area, water refill stations, cooling areas, and plenty of picnic tables and shady areas to sit and relax to the music in. It was the perfect two-day picnic for electronic music dance lovers.
Reading social media feed after the first night, the most memorable moment for most fans seemed to be when unexpected rain started to fall during the last two sets of the event. Over at the HARD stage, the scene during performances by the A$AP Mob and Jack U (Skrillex and Diplo) seemed to be out of a movie when the rain poured on the fans as they continued to rap every verse and dance until Jack U’s closing shout-outs and thank you’s.
On Sunday, popular acts like Dillon Francis drew in about 30,000 people to his set at the HARD stage. HARD stage remained packed, having Disclosure and legend Tiesto right after Francis’ performance.
The tents and stages were paid full attention by the fans, none of the stages lacked crowd participation. Over at the tent scene during the same time as Tiesto’s set, the Purple tent was beautifully crowded, as fans gathered to see Sunday’s closer Cashmere Cat.
Cashmere Cat was the first artist announced performing this event and has previously sold out his Los Angeles performance earlier this year. Needless to say, the fans were in awe whilst their favorite Norwegian producer dropped his hits and closed the event with a brand-new track.
Overall HARD Summer was a surely bigger and better as promised. Although the Downtown Los Angeles scene was missed, the venue allowed for more dancing and the shady areas were greatly appreciated.
Thank you, Gary Richards!
Now having a taste of HARD Summer, will you be going to HARD Day Of The Dead in November?
View below photos of HARD Summer 2014:
*All photos by Jeanette Hernandez.
