Vegas Be Ravin'

The Electric Daisy Carnival, the controversial yet wildly promoted corporate rave that was essentially run out of Los Angeles by concerned parents who may as well have been carrying torches pitchforks after a teenager died at last year's LA Coliseum addition a year ago, is coming to Las Vegas.

Unless you're a person who:

-can't accept that Electronica never lived up to the media's overheated declarations that it was "the music of the future"
-don't feel there's anything silly about an adult sucking on a pacifier
-think it's a good idea to take Ecstacy, a drug that is notorious for causing dehydration, in the nearly 120 degree desert heat...

...this might not be a great weekend to visit Las Vegas.

Last year saw over 100,000 fans of electronic dance music swarm into the coliseum. If you tried to book a room in town and found that normally mid-priced hotels had room rates approaching $700 a night, the massive EDC festival is the reason why. Vegas is going to be packed this weekend, and packed with people from a scene that I did not get when I was too young to partake in it and still don't really get now that I'm too old to partake in it.

That said, the controversy caused by the festival is maybe a little hysterical. It's another case of youth culture being frowned upon by nervous adults who can't remember that what they used to do for fun made their parents nervous, a cycle that's been going on since teenage velociraptors were told that they listened to devil music by their out of touch parents. Didn't anybody see the trailer for the remake of Footloose? Sure, it looks awful, but it's also proof that that story still has resonance (okay, I do find it hard to believe that there's anywhere in modern America that would "ban dancing," but you get my point). As much as the media wants to play the event up as a den of dangerously risky behavior, mostly these are just a bunch of kids who want to dance.

So I say, dance away in your goofy hats and costumes, enjoy your music where the number of "beats per minute," something that can be manipulated electronically, is considered impressive and where the star"performers" are dudes standing behind laptops.

If the organizers of the festival do their due diligence and have enough security on hand and don't gouge the kids too much for waters (which would be especially heinous, considering the elements involved in this fest), then the EDC will be a success. If not... well, there should be some harrowing headlines coming out of Vegas Monday morning.

Rave safely, kids. And remember to drink lots of fluids... it's gonna be hot all weekend.