Desert Hearts Festival 2018

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  • "One Stage, One Vibe" was the mantra drilled into me from the moment I decided to attend Desert Hearts 2018. For one weekend a year, the festival turns an Indian reservation about two hours north of San Diego into a bustling city of tie-dye-clad revellers, local food vendors and clothiers peddling their wares. Oh, and music—house and techno pumps from the only stage for more than 72 hours straight. The idea is that everyone is in the same place and on the same wavelength. It's a festival that emphasizes connection between people and gives them a colourful, positive and respectful playground to make new friends and reunite with old ones, soundtracked by a crew that have quickly become a force in US dance music.   Desert Hearts started in San Diego in 2012. Its team of colourfully-dressed residents—including Mikey Lion, Marbs, Porky and Lee Reynolds (the spiritual father of the group and an ex-pro BMX rider)—are bona fide superstars in a certain sect of the US house scene. They tour endlessly and sell out their festival year after year, carving out a dedicated cult following from an audience of ravers, Burning Man regulars and West Coast hippies, who come to see the residents more than anyone else.   I've been to a lot of West Coast camping festivals, so Desert Hearts felt instantly familiar: the colourful clothes (and near-nude outfits), vegan food, Burning Man-style themed camps and endless procession of booths selling rave fashion with names like "The Thriftsy Gypsy" and "A Line Called K." But it also felt different from anything I'd been to before. The sound and production values were top-notch and the layout was intimate, like a small village instead of a sprawling festival. It all added up to a real feeling of community. It's hard not to bump into strangers and make new friends when you're all milling or dancing around the same space, which is when the "One Stage, One Vibe" ethos comes into play.
    It had its drawbacks, too. Mainly, there wasn't much musical variety. There were welcome melodic detours from DJs like Atish and Tara Brooks, and I recognized a few tracks that broke from the low-slung pattern: Egyptian Lover played a spirited midday live set, Matt Tolfrey opened his set with Discreet Unit's excellent "Shake Your Body Down," Porkchop brought out Fatima Yamaha's "What's A Girl To Do," and Mikey Lion played Tolfrey's recent release for the Desert Hearts label, which epitomizes the groovy side of the crew's sound. Otherwise, it was "one vibe" indeed—great for people who wanted to zone out to one massively extended groove, but I often found myself pining for a more varied selection. The audience didn't seem to share my cravings. Once Friday evening rolled around, the stage was busy for the rest of my stay. It was full of people dancing, sitting around or checking out the paintings and installations all around us. There was an elevated stage reserved purely for fire spinners, and there were plenty of themed bars serving up cocktails, beer and champagne, along with tents full of stuffed animals and the requisite yoga classes and healing workshops.
    In fact, there was so much to do onsite that I started to think that music was only one part of something bigger. The crew's social media posts endlessly use words like "vibes," "spiritual" and "connection," and they go out of their way to foster this communal feeling. I saw plenty of joyful reunions, deep conversations and platonic cuddling on the dance floor. Even when I wasn't feeling the music, the atmosphere was infectious. On Friday night, as I bounced from one group of incredibly friendly and generous strangers to the next, I understood how Desert Hearts had built such a dedicated audience in only five years. The campground was littered with signs that said "We Are All Desert Hearts." For one night, I felt like I could be one, too. Photo credit / Jess Bernstein - Lead, Unicorn Haley Busch - Three DJs, Damian Lazarus, Night scene
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