Last night saw the L.A. premiere of Electric Daisy Carnival Experience, a documentary about the eponymous electronic music festival that’s meant to celebrate the positivity and togetherness of the still-thriving rave scene—an ideological spin that’s more important than ever after reports from last year’s EDC focused primarily on the 226 reported injuries and one likely drug-related death. Unfortunately, the film now has its own publicity hurdle to overcome: The screening at Grauman’s Chinese Theater turned into a near-riot when one of the film’s stars, DJ Kaskade, used his Twitter account to announce that he planned to throw an impromptu block party in front of the theater—which sounded like a whole lot of fun to thousands of people, who shut down Hollywood Boulevard within hours.
Unfortunately, Kaskade’s tweet was apparently all the “planning” that had gone into it: Before he’d even arrived to witness the melee he’d created, police had cordoned off both ends of the street and begun circling helicopters around the unauthorized “#flashcrowd” (as Kaskade called it), while surprised and overwhelmed promoters futilely ordered the increasingly agitated crowd to disperse. Even Kaskade was forced to return to Twitter and use scolding all-caps, urging everyone to “CHILL” and “PLEASE RELAX” and saying, “EVERYONE NEEDS TO GO HOME NOW! I DON'T WANT THIS TO REFLECT BADLY ON EDM OR WHAT WE ARE ABOUT. BE RESPECTFUL AND CHILL OUT!!!” (Note: These are good ideas applicable to all situations.)
Regrettably, these latest tweets went unheeded, and L.A. police—who have muscle memory for this sort of thing—began physically pushing the throng away and shooting them with bean bags, as things spiraled out of control and mutated into, essentially, The Rave Of The Locust. Hopefully Los Angeles’ electronic music community will be able to begin the slow process of healing itself today, maybe by drinking some valerian tea and listening to The Orb really quietly.