On the August long weekend Downsview Park hosted Veld Music Festival, the largest electronic dance music festival in Canada. With 30 international DJs, three stages and more than 50,000 people raving over the span of two days, Veld carved its initials into Toronto’s diverse music scene.
 
From sitting on a hill in Downsview Park overlooking the weekend’s celebrations to fist pumping in the crowded pit, no matter when and where, Veld was a huge sausage fest. Men came from all over to rave half naked or in neon-pink tank tops. Electronic dance music is bigger than ever, and Veld has contributed to bringing house music to the mainstream and out from under the disco balls of fly on a Saturday night.
 
On Saturday, Steve Aoki popped champagne all over the crowd as he DJed his beat-thrusting set. Near the end of his show, Aoki catapulted an inflatable boat into the masses and threw himself into it as his fans kept him afloat. Now that’s what I call crowd-surfing! An emerging house duo, Knife Party, played a show with lights fast enough to induce raving seizures. By the time Canada’s own Deadmau5 came on to headline day one, the weather had turned sour, but the energy of the crowd and DJ remained high. Soon enough, it was impossible to differentiate raindrops from sweat or the thunder from deadmau5’s bass.
 
When round two of Veld rolled around on Sunday afternoon, most of the men had abandoned all fabric. The half-naked attire was a pleasure not just for major eye-candy, but for when the crowd jumped up and down for AN21 and Max Vangeli. Later, Bassnectar dehydrated the masses of sweaty men (and ladies) with even more heavy-hitting bass.
 
By the time Veld’s two-day sauna-raving orgy came to a close with world-renowned DJ Avicii, the throngs had released all of their inhibitions. As he finished off with his monster-hit “Levels,” the crowd roared on, calling out his name. To everyone's surprise, after the last beat was dropped, Avicii came back for an encore.
 
As the plugged-in music fest came to a close, no patches of grass could be found anywhere near the massive DJ stages. Glow sticks rolled in the wind, and confetti and glitter were spread everywhere. If this were the apocalypse, Veld would have been gay heaven and the DJs our raving angels. – Logan Ly