Riverside Festival Fans Get Caked

The seventh annual Riverside Festival took place last weekend on the magnificent grounds of the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec.

If you have never been to an EDM festival you should know that they can be, let’s say, visually stimulating. In addition to the bright and colorful stage lights, pyro, and smoke canons, it’s not uncommon to see pigtails, soothers, fishnet stockings, lots of neon, and even the occasional animal costume. For the second year in a row, this beat thumping party atmosphere took place in one of the most stunning locations offered by the National Capital Region, right on the edge of the Ottawa River overlooking Parliament Hill. The Museum of History provided the perfect backdrop for all those strobes and throngs of party goers who were there to let loose and have a good time.

We caught most of the acts on Saturday and Sunday evenings, including an impressive world-class lineup of DJs such as Jay Hardway, Lost Kings, Tritonal, and UK sensation Zomboy whose enthusiasm had the crowd riled up from the start. When the fans were told to bounce, they bounced. When they were told to bang their heads, they obeyed, and when they were told to form mosh pits, they tried to follow orders, but this proved difficult to do as they were packed in together like sardines. Strangely no one seemed to mind and security didn’t seem to be very busy during the fest. Maybe those soothers did the trick after all. Wink, wink…

The headliners on Saturday night were a trio from Montreal called Black Tiger Sex Machine. The trio, consisting of Marc Chagnon, Julien Maranda and Patrick Barry wear illuminated tiger helmets during their live shows and specialize in aggressive, dark electronic music. They have performed at Lollapalooza, TomorrowWorld, Electric Daisy Carnival, Electric Forest, Electric Zoo, SXSW, Escape, Evolve, Lost Lands, Paradiso, crush, Osheaga, Ile Soniq, Igloofest, Shambala, and Decadence to the delight of their fans from around the world.

The best, however, was yet to come on Sunday evening. If you have never heard of Steve Aoki, here is what you need to know. He is American musician, DJ, record producer and music executive who has a few Instagram followers – 8.2 million to be exact. No big deal. He is a Grammy award winner and one of the highest grossing dance artists in the world. He has collaborated with the likes of will.i.am, the Backstreet Boys, Iggy Azalea, Linkin Park, and blink-182 just to name a few. He is also the founder of the Steve Aoki Charitable Fund, which raises money for global humanitarian relief organizations.

It is not surprising that he has developed such a cult following as he is simply a ball of energy on stage who seems to genuinely enjoy interacting with his fans. This includes taking pictures with them, guzzling champing with them, inviting them to come on stage with him, but most notably, throwing cakes at them. Yes, that’s what I said. As they always do, on Sunday night his fans came armed with posters that said things like “This face needs cake” and towards the end of his show he gave them what they came for. His assistants handed him 8 or 9 cakes that he launched from the top of the stage out into the crowd. The messier the better apparently. We had an absolute blast covering the fest this year and we hope you did too if you were there!

For more information: https://riversidefestival.ca/en/home/

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