A massive thanks to Global Citizen, the organizers of this year’s Thank You Festival at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD.  The festival featured an all-star lineup of Alvin Risk, Cedric Gervais, Krewella, Above & Beyond, and Tiësto. But how do you make a show that everyone wants to go to even bigger? While many people I know paid the $45 for lawn tickets– a ton of others I met at the show hadn’t paid a single penny for their ticket! Instead, they had taken action to support initiatives supporting progress for the world’s children. According to the organizers, the event had 19,000 in attendance, together celebrating global change.

Global Citizen revolves around a simple goal: “that every person can play a role in realizing the end of extreme poverty by 2030.”  The organization stresses that to eradicate extreme poverty it is advocacy that creates more sustainable change, as opposed to just fundraising.  The name Global Citizen stems from the idea that we are not citizens of one country, but of the world.

The DC native Alvin Risk took the stage first, in the heat of the day. While it was early, the lawn was already getting packed and the people came ready to party. Alvin threw down one hell of a set. He played his own remixed versions of songs such as “Dirty Dancer,” which was one of many moombahton tracks that he threw down. The transition led right into “Pandejas,” which Alvin created as a collaboration with U Street Music Hall’s Tittsworth. It’s not a moombahton party until someone plays “Pandejas” after all!

But Alvin didn’t just stick to moombahton, he highlighted his singing talents when he grabbed the mic and belting his heart out.  Afterwards, he asked the crowd, “Aren’t you guys happy? It’s f**king summer and we’re listening to music at a festival!”

The festival continued with the widely popular Cedric Gervais, who came out playing his Grammy award-winning anthem “Summertime Sadness”.

The French DJ revealed how much traveling he has been doing this summer, as he shouted, “What’s up Virginia?!” The crowd immediately caught the faux pas, knowing that they were in Maryland.  They just let him realize his mistake, and carried on with a combination of excitement and laughter. Cedric played a primarily big house show, accompanied by great visuals that could be seen on the massive screens. His quick-moving, upbeat remixes did keep the crowd moving, never once letting the energy die down.

The last time I saw Krewella perform was during their outdoor show on New Year’s Eve in Cleveland, OH, in the middle of a snow storm.  Seeing them perform in the scorching sun, was an amazing experience. A noticeable difference from their show in Cleveland was the absence of the male DJ, Kris “Rain Man” Trindl. The girls were singing and remixing all of their songs– which really showcased some of their newer flair. While they performed crowd favorites such as “Alive” and “Live for the Night.” It’s a shame that their set isn’t included in Thump’s “Thank You Festival Live” video on YouTube, because it was one of the best, and now we can’t even revisit the fun like we can for the others.

As Krewella left the stage, and the sun was setting, the trance powerhouse Above & Beyond took to the tables to show Merriweather a truly trancy evening, accompanied by the first use of lasers of the show.  They came out strong, dropping a ton of balloons onto the crowd as they started off the set with “Good For Me”, and then went on to amp up the entire PLUR feeling of the day– which I’m almost certain couldn’t get any stronger given that everyone was raging for a better world, by hitting right into “A Thing Called Love.”

https://soundcloud.com/aboveandbeyond/13-thing-called-love-feat

As their set progressed, the crowd was melodically moving to all of the trance-infused songs, but would occasionally break into a more driving dance as A&B treated everyone with some dubbier sounding remixes.  One of the main highlights of the set came as the face of Heisenberg glowed brightly on the screen–leading into “Walter White.” Lasers were fully unleashed onto the crowd still rocking their sunglasses to protect their eyes. Then, the beginning beats of “Sun and Moon” could be heard, and tears were already streaming down the faces of some. Everyone bonded as the set came to a close and A&B put on the screen “This Is Group Therapy on a Global Scale,” to which the crowd immediately started chanting “U-S-A!” in honor of the World Cup pursuit.

The treat of the evening was the super bright, ridiculously loud set of Tiësto. Even though many had been there for close to five hot hours before he came on, a renewal was radiating from the audience as the countdown began. The set started off blasting Tiësto’s infamous logo on the screen, with lasers going full-tilt, showing that the light show was going to be something to remember. At points during the show, the lights were flashing, strobing, and blazing so brightly that people on the downward facing lawn slope sometimes turned their heads away as the light blasted through their sunglasses. Tiësto also dropped a ton of confetti all over the disgustingly sweaty crowd, and then cooled everyone down by shooting the most smoke out of the cannons compared to any other DJ that evening.

About midway through his set, the unmistakable beat for “Footprints” came on, with a fantastic display on the screen behind him showing scenes from cities around the world, including the World Cup host city Rio de Janeiro– continuing the message of international unity for a good cause and good music. After bringing on the feels, he brought members of the crowd to tears with the remix of John Legend’s “All of Me,” during which you could see almost everyone in the audience holding onto a fellow concert-goer and belting the lyrics at the top of their lungs.  Tiësto built up to his encore as he raised the bar with a fantastic remix and light show to the Seven Lions jam, “Worlds Apart,” after which he would launch into the hit song “Latch” by Disclosure.  He ended the evening of awesomeness with “Wasted,” the anthem for any great weekend night– even if all of the absurdity that was Thank You Festival went down on a Thursday night.

Thank You Festival was by far the biggest show to have come through the DMV this summer, with almost all of the DJs coming straight off of playing EDC Las Vegas.  And hell, it was all for a good cause– USAID pledged $50 million to ensure access to education across the world.

Missed the festival? Want to see it (minus Krewella’s set for whatever reason)?

(special surprise between 3:57:30 and 3:58:00)

Article by Matt Shlonsky – Photos by Toby Mues