Matt Oliver OC Weekly

Skrillex

I Love This City Festival

Cricket Wireless Amphitheater 

5/27/2012

This Memorial Day Weekend, the new electronic music festival produced by Live Nation Entertainment and LED Presents made its debut. The San Diego edition of I Love This City drew a sea of EDM fans at the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater on Sunday starting at 1:00pm. This day-long festival featured an avalanche of electronic music royalty, including Skrillex, A-Trak, The Crystal Method, Dirtyloud, Adrian Lux, Twelves, TJR, Terravita, The M Machine, AC Slater, Clockwork, Audrey Napoleon and Gina Turner on three different stages.

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The 53-year-old has made no qualms about being nervous about the mega show, telling Jay Leno that it's "the most nerve-wracking thing" she's ever done. (We can hardly believe a woman of her stature, who's gone head-to-head with the best and the brightest in her industry, could be at all intimidated by this massive exposure.)

The thing is, despite her tremendous success, she's still got a lot to prove. The original Material Girl has been accused of a lot of things, including of lip-syncing, which is perhaps why Madge has been rehearsing her setlist---that includes "Gimmie All Your Luvin," "Ray of Light" and "Vogue," "Music" and "Holiday"---extensively. Because if she blows it on Sunday, these enemies will get the last laugh.

Ask guitarist Ruben Cortez of Whittier's the Littlest Viking to deconstruct his music and he'll flash a boyish smile and tell you he simply writes pop songs.

"I could play all of our songs as pop-punk versions," he says.

Never mind that the music is instrumental, and laden with math rock sensibilities, vacillating between angular rhythms and sugary sweet melodies sandwiched between as many thematic changes as one song can reasonably be expected to hold, leading me to suspect that Cortez might be speaking with an overly glib tongue.