Project Z is the festival where Insomniac brings together all the lovers of heavy electronic music. There were three stages at this event, one hosted by Bassrush featuring dubstep and drum n bass, one hosted by Basscon featuring all the hardstyle, and the Area Z stage that had all the bass music.
The layout of this festival was perfect as you could get to each stage in a very short amount of time with centrally located water stations and bathrooms. The venue wasn’t too big which at first sort of concerned me for fear that it would get way too packed later on in the evening but that was never the case and there was always open space to walk around.
I began the day by heading over to the Area Z stage where I spent the vast majority of my time at the festival. Bass music is blowing up right now and as soon as I saw Insomniac would have a stage showcasing some of the best artists this genre has to offer I knew I needed to go to this event. The first set we saw came from Holly who came fresh off his tour with Borgore and Joyryde. He delivered a hard hitting set full of crazy mashups dropping a wide variety of styles from bass music to dubstep to future bass. He flawlessly flowed through each style smoothly with a killer set to start out the day.
After his set we went over to the Bassrush stage to catch Space Jesus play an insane set with his unique take on space bass. He dropped all of his bangers that you’d want to hear as well as some unreleased tracks from his friend Bleep Bloop that everyone is eagerly awaiting to come out. The energy in that tent was unreal and the set was nonstop bass in your face.
After getting our brains melted by Space Jesus we headed back over to the Area Z stage and set up camp as we knew we wouldn’t be leaving for a while. It was nice that this stage had grass all around so you could sit down and enjoy the music while not being in the wild crowd towards the front of the stage. Conrank came on and played a dirty set filled with his own tracks as well as some classic dubstep tracks from artists like the legendary Rusko. The next set came from Dimond Saints who delivered a slow wonky trap set unlike anything I had heard before. This was the perfect set to just lay out and enjoy the intricate beats as the sun began to set.
After this I headed over to the Basscon stage to see DJ Isaac perform his classics set. DJ Isaac was the first electronic music I ever heard over ten years ago so I knew this was a set I had to witness. He said he was going to play a classics set and he delivered. I heard all my favorite songs of his that I was listening to all those years ago including his remix of the classic tune Cosmic Gate's Exploration of Space. After getting all that hardstyle out of my system I headed back to Area Z.
It was now time to see my most hyped set of the weekend, Moody Good. He played a killer set playing old and new tracks from his entire discography. A highlight of the set was when he dropped a track from his other alias 16 Bit that was one of the first dubstep songs I ever heard. He had the crowd in the palm of his hands as he dropped banger after banger. As he dropped his remix of Slum Village’s Fall In Love you could tell everyone in that crowd was truly a fan of his music as everyone started getting hyped for arguably his biggest banger. Moody Good rarely plays shows in the Southern California area so this set was something really special.
For the rest of the night I stayed at the Area Z stage. There I was able to enjoy the intense half time vibes that Ivy Lab is known for, followed by a killer set by the analog legend EPROM with his filthy bass. The closing set of the festival was by Ganja White Night. I was extremely hyped to see them after they completely destroyed my existence at Electric Forest a little over a month ago. They were playing some great tracks but you could barely hear anything. There was virtually no bass and it was just way too quiet. I left one of my most hyped sets early due to the terrible sound that it was plagued with.
Overall the event was amazing. I’m glad bass music finally got some recognition at an Insomniac event and I hope we see some more stages like Area Z in future events. The event was extremely well organized and I hope we get to see more small events like this in the future.