Live Review: Stereosonic 2012

Arguably the biggest line-up in the history of the festival, Stereosonic has now cemented its place alongside the Soundwaves and Big Day Outs. Tiestos and Aviciis aside though, it was the younger contingent of this line-up which not only warmed the masses up for the headliners, but gained some masses of their own in the process. Between Glove Cats' use of Rage Against The Machine's Bulls On Parade into Cypress Hill's Insane In The Membrane on the Bass Stage (and there was bass), Nina Las Vegas adding some musical and physical glamour to the Paris Social Club Stage and Eric Powell absolutely destroying (let's remember, that's a good thing in this genre) Carl Cox's Revolution Stage, the early hours of the day were taken care of as the walking tattoos and boob tubes stocked up on their Vodka Cruiser flavor of choice (pineapple was the best, for the record).

An understated Bingo Players took no more than ten minutes to crack into Cry (Just A Little) and horn-lead Rattle (the former of which has already been tainted by Flo Rida) on the Sonic Stage, while Queensland's own Tommy Trash proved he is worthy of holding his own against the international big guns on the main stage, culminating with his unofficial Stereosonic anthem All My Friends.

As the sun forged singlet lines across tattoos and the number of condoms found in the portaloos gradually increased, one of the most-promising young talents in the form of South Germany's Zedd took the Hard LA stage under his command. A showcase of all of the greatest mixes one would come across when sussing out his Soundcloud, as well as a high class of originals such as Spectrum, Shotgun, Slam The Door and the latest Clarity, Zedd proved himself the pinnacle of bedroom-producer-come-superstar, throwing in some M83 and an amazingly visually assisted remix of the Zelda video game theme music for good measure.

Letting both the brand Pioneer (provider of a faulty mixer it seemed) and anyone at the Main Stage know that they had permission to perform fellatio on him at any given time, the rare and cheeky attitude that fills Dillon Francis' mixes more than carried over to his set as he has the hard task of following Zedd on the Hard LA Stage, Francis handled the pressure though as Kanye West, Swedish House Mafia and even Rihanna all found their way in between his seemingly short-attention span. Diplo fittingly continued the rarities, throwing moombahton and dubstep in where he saw the need and setting the crowd up for Major Lazer's later headlining slot.

As Changed The Way You Kissed Me and Stay Awake received their fitting response during Example's Main Stage set, the now full main stage arena was ready for the likes of Calvin Harris to take control, and take control he did. A constant fire of hit after hit from one of the most-popular artists in the world, let alone the genre, included amped up versions of Bounce, Feel So Close and the Florence Welch featuring Sweet Nothing, creating the suspicion that the choice of guests on his tracks alone may have given Harris the leg up on this line-up.

As Carl Cox saw to it that no one forgot about the veterans of the genre among all of the young guns, and Porter Robinson orchestrated a heavy set, albeit a little light on the originality, the masses flocked to the Main Stage for the man of the hour, year, or decade, depending your threshold for overkill. Backwards cap and most impressive light show of the day in tow, Avicii entered what was now a cauldron of humanity and moulded it to become his own. My Feelings For You, Fade Into Darkness and Silhouettes stuck out between the world class mixes, but it was closing with a verbatim version of Levels, that reminded 30,000 people why they were there.

Tiësto's set was as solid as expected as he brought the crowd together with the likes of U2's In The Name of Love weaved between his own hits including Maximal Crazy and Chasing Summers. A near 20-year veteran in his own right, it would have done some of the younger acts occupying the smaller stage to take note of the sheer control happening in the Main Stage arena as Tiësto played on the audience's expectations better than most.

As Major Lazer drew their own slew of diehards to the Sonic Stage, Loco Dice faced the hard task of backing up Carl Cox on his own stage, the crowds shrank, promises of sobriety were made and regrets were realized, the end of another Stereosonic came upon us and left us looking forward to who will lead next year's charge.