Remembering Middlelands

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Middlelands only happened once, on May 5-7, 2017. It was staged by Insomniac, the huge enterprise that also organizes EDC, Beyond Wonderland, Escape Halloween, and so many other huge events that draw enormous crowds every year. It was conceived as a huge EDM fest with a medieval/Renaissance theme, and thus was staged on a Renaissance Faire ground. Middlelands was supposed to be another huge annual festival like those others, but thus far has only been a one-off in 2017.

I'm not sure how I found out that it was happening. Most likely I first heard about it from one of my south Texas fest fam that I was going to Euphoria, with that year. It happened only four weeks after Euphoria at the Texas Renaissance Faire grounds in a small town called Todd Mission which is closer to Houston than any other big city, but far enough away that it's really not part of the Houston metro area. The Ren Faire grounds are Todd Mission's main claim to fame, as it hosts a huge Ren Faire every year.

Getting there wasn't that hard, since it was west of Houston and I was in San Antonio. One of my friends from Euphoria, who no longer lived in Texas and who I would be camping with a year later at Lightning in a Bottle, picked me up in her truck at my San Antonio apartment and it was something like a three hour drive east on Interstate 10, including an obligatory stop at Buc-ee's. We got to Todd Mission after nightfall. We had to wait in a long traffic line outside the gates before we could get in and set up camp next to some interesting people we got to know over the weekend.

The Camping Areas


We were in Fellowship Field. Also, notice the Sound Camping in the top left; we'll get back to that a little later.

The fairgrounds had a huge camping area, most of which was used for the festival. You can see it in the map above; camping was divided into several zones with names like "Fellowship Field" and "The Sanctuary." In the middle of it all was a commons area called Conqueror's Court. This place had food stands where I got breakfast in the mornings, and it also hosted some events like arts and crafts, hula hoop workshops, competitions like tug-of-war, and a nightly bonfire. Next to Conqueror's Court was Enchanted Grove, which hosted events like stargazing and yoga, and the Insomniac Sound Camp where there was a Thursday night pre-party, and on the other nights some of the festival artists played after-hours sets.

I didn't hang around the commons areas enough. The schedule says Enchanted Grove had movie showings every night. I wonder what movies?

And then of course there were the sound camps. At festivals like this, it's pretty common for some of the people camping there to bring their own DJ equipment and sound systems, and set up their own stages right there in the camping areas. Here, though, there was a specific section of the camping area set aside for this sort of thing. We'll return to this later in the blog after we've reviewed the music in the festival.

The Festival Grounds

This festival was set up on a Ren Faire ground, and that kind of atmosphere pervaded it everywhere. Many of the Ren Faire's food and drink vendors were open here, selling things like turkey legs. In one place I got first turned on to Death Wish Coffee. There was one place where you could watch puppet shows. Of course everyone working here was wearing an appropriate Ren Faire-themed costume. Maybe I should've brought my own.

There were five stages within the festival. Middlelands Arena and Castle Northwoods were the big ones which hosted the headliners at night, with Northwoods being the one with the biggest names. The Stronghold was as big as the other two, though with not as much audience space. Smaller stages hosting the least-known artists were Trinity Vale and Wench's Bay.


Castle Northwoods was the biggest stage and during the nights hosted the biggest name headliners.

Next to Northwoods was the VIP area, which was a nice hangout spot if you paid enough to get a VIP wristband, and it had a great view of Castle Northwoods without the oppressively tight crowds. Sometimes even some of the musicians dropped in; one afternoon I remember one of the members of Rae Sremmurd stopping by for a while.


Also, in the VIP area I found the biggest game of beer pong I've ever seen.

The other really big stage was Middlelands Arena. This stage was set up in a big amphitheater which is usually just called "The Arena" during Ren Faires.


Boombox Cartel playing at the Middlelands Arena early Sunday evening.


This is the Trinity Vale stage, which was set up in one of the fairgrounds' thoroughfares. I'm not sure who was playing here. The schedule said Aaron Jackson was supposed to be on, but there's clearly two guys behind the decks here. Whoever it was, they played a few tunes that I liked but didn't recognize, and so Shazammed them for future listening. One of them turned out to be Chris Lake's "I Want You."

I never stopped at the Stronghold, which was adjacent to Northwoods. On Friday and Sunday this stage was sponsored by Bassrush and mostly devoted to various bass subgenres, featuring artists such as 12th Planet, Space Jesus, and Datsik. Every time I walked by it there were only dubsteppers, who I wasn't interested in, playing there, but long after this fest I learned that some really great drum 'n bass producers, such as Delta Heavy and Friction, played the Stronghold. A couple years later I did catch Friction at Untold and experienced a little of what I missed here.

As for that last stage, Wench's Bay, I never even made it there. It was at a secret location and I never bothered to look for it. Looking back, I think I should have.

The Music that I Experienced

There may have only been five stages, but the lineup was packed enough that there was always someone playing every stage at every moment during the afternoons and evenings, with no breaks between sets. So, it was impossible to see everyone you wanted to.


Marshmello headlining Castle Northwoods on Friday night. I didn't see a whole lot else that day.

I spent way too much time hanging around the VIP area next to Castle Northwoods, which is probably why I missed so much other good stuff at the other stages.

On Saturday, after an afternoon of wandering around the Ren Faire village and stopping by various stages for a few minutes, the first set I completely took in was Louis the Child at Castle Northwoods. I wonder, was their being named after a medieval French king a reason for them being in the lineup here? I'd just found out about them while preparing myself for this festival, and I would see them again five months later at ACL. "Fire," "Slow Down Love," "Weekend," and my personal favorite "Love Is Alive" all made appearances here. I think their sound is more pop-oriented than it is around any EDM genre; some of the tracks they played by other artists included Børns' "Electric Love" and Miike Snow's "Genghis Khan."

Next up at Northwoods, after the sun set, was Alison Wonderland. This was one of my favorite sets of the weekend. I'd only discovered Alison Wonderland earlier that year, an Australian producer/DJ who also does all the singing on most of her own tracks. She really got into the theme of this festival, wearing a crown and a shiny red cape, and at the beginning wielding a foam sword. This was a mesmerizing, energetic set which included most everything off Alison's then-recent debut release, such as "Run," "Messiah," and of course "U Don't Know," which all still today remind me of being there. I think I might have heard Boombox Cartel's "Phoenix" in the mix too. Northwoods' massive screens also had some amazing visuals.


The best shot I could get of the stage while Alison Wonderland was on.

After Alison Wonderland finished her set at Northwoods, I left the VIP area and headed over to Middlelands Arena to see Seven Lions, who I was more interested in seeing than GRiZ, who were next at Northwoods. Nothing particular stood out about this set, but I did enjoy it and it touched on several different electronic subgenres from trance to dubstep.

But leaving Northwoods to catch this turned out to be a mistake. Sure, I liked Seven Lions' set, but the most-talked-about thing from the whole festival happened at Northwoods during GRiZ while I was gone. I'm talking about the "come down from the tree" incident.

I was informed of what went down after I returned from the Arena to the VIP area. While GRiZ was playing, someone who was probably tripping on one mind-altering substance or another climbed up a tree and then realized he was so high up he was too scared to attempt climbing back down. GRiZ stopped playing and said he couldn't go on until that kid in the tree was safely back on the ground. There are, of course, videos of this, here's the kid up in the tree, and here's the cherry picker pulling him out.

Saturday night's Northwoods headliner was Bassnectar...yeah, remember when Bassnectar headlined every festival and none of us knew that behind the scenes he was trying to take a page out of R. Kelly's book?

Early on Sunday afternoon there was a DJ playing a set at Northwoods which I just had to see...


Hodor! By now most of us who were watching *Game of Thrones* back then knew that Kristian Nairn, who played Hodor on that show, was also a DJ. He was billed as "Kristian Nairn AKA Hodor" on the schedule. This happened right after we had seen Hodor's memorable death, so there was at least one person in the crowd with a sign reading "Hold the door!" I saw him again over two years later at Untold in Romania.

Later after the sun set, Zhu played Castle Northwoods. This was interesting; he was augmented by two guest musicians, a saxophonist and a guitarist. While they didn't play on every song, they did make a welcome contribution and played a couple great solos.

Galantis followed Zhu at Northwoods. Galantis are a pair of Swedish DJ/producers who make a lot of irresistably catchy tunes whose videos almost all feature a unique, anthropomorphic, Australian-accented creature known as "the Seafox." The songs they're most well-known for are probably "Peanut Butter Jelly" and "Runaway," both of which we heard here. I really liked "Peanut Butter Jelly" at that time because only a month earlier it had been one of the last songs in Bakermat's set at Euphoria.

And finally, the Sunday night headliner, closing down Northwoods on the last night of the festival, was Kaskade. This was my third time seeing him, the first being at San Antonio's Cowboys Dance Hall in 2012 when he was on the Freaks of Nature tour, and the second at the Lights All Night festival in downtown Dallas in December of 2013 after he had just released Atmosphere. Since then I hadn't kept up with him too much but still thoroughly enjoyed this set. This set included mostly music from the last five or so years--the stuff from those last two albums and tours like "Atmosphere" and "We Don't Stop" plus newer material that was unfamiliar to me, a remix of Tinashe's "Flame" he'd just released. At the climactic moment near the end we got to hear "Move For Me," which bled into "Look Into My Eyes," during which an unforgettable fireworks display went off, accompanied by a shower of confetti. The perfect closing to the festival.


During Kaskade's closing set.

But even after the festival area closed down at the end of every night that didn't have to be the end if you didn't want it to be. There's no way I could write about Middlelands without discussing the sound camps. I've never seen anything like this at other fests. Well, that is, I've seen "renegade" stages hosting amateur DJs in other fests' camping areas, but this was the only festival where I've seen such a thing officially sanctioned. There was a special part of the camping grounds reserved for people, usually artist collectives, who wanted to set up their own stages. If you were camping there, when the festival itself was over for the night, you didn't have to just go back to your tent because the sound camps kept the party going till dawn.


Dohm Collective was an artist collective from New Orleans who set up a stage under a big geodesic dome.


Call of Booty had a "pirate" theme. The one time I stopped there, after the fest had shut down on Sunday night, they had a DJ dressed like a stereotypical pirate with a bandana and an eye patch.

Then there was House Pineapple, which I never bothered to take a picture of. It was set up by "Shipfam," the close-knit community of people who go to the annual Holy Ship! festival which happens every November on a cruise ship. When I walked in, late Sunday night/Monday morning, they were playing some great drum 'n bass. This is where I finished off Sunday night and thus the whole festival.

As of now, 2022, Middlelands only happened this one time in 2017. It was supposed to be the inaugural event in a series of annual festivals, just like EDC, Escape Halloween, Beyond Wonderland, and Insomniac's other big festivals, but so far the first event was the only one. Apparently, from what I've heard, there was a great deal of tension between the festival goers and the residents of Todd Mission. I'd never left the festival grounds the whole weekend, but there were a lot of others who had been roaming the streets drunk, stoned, tripping, or in other altered states, causing all kinds of unwanted mayhem in town. There were also noise complaints; one anecdote I heard was that there were people who couldn't sleep at night because their whole houses were vibrating from the loud basslines.

So, after this weekend, the town of Todd Mission absolutely refused to allow Insomniac to put on another Middlelands at the Texas Ren Faire grounds. Since then they've been looking for a new home but haven't found one. They haven't forgotten about us, though. When the pandemic shut the world down in 2020 and Insomniac put on a bunch of livestreamed "Virtual Rave-a-thons" on YouTube, each themed after one of Insomniac's annual festivals, and one of them was Middlelands. Maybe someday there will be another Middlelands, and no matter how far in the future it is, I'll be there.

Want to experience some of the music of Middlelands? Some of the sets can be entirely or almost entirely found on YouTube and Soundcloud.

Here's one of my favorite recap videos.


Two years later, on May 5, 2019, half a world away at Stuttgarter Frühlingsfest.

 

 

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