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How This Year's HARD Summer Claimed Los Angeles' Festival Throne

Heat stroke, crowd control issues, and Justin Bieber couldn't stop Gary Richard's hometown baby from being on top of its game.

Gary Richards' hometown baby HARD Summer is all grown up. In recent years, the brand has been acquired by Live Nation and gone global, with expansions into Canada, Australia, and Sweden. Yet, when it all went down this past weekend (August 1-2, 2015) for the first time at Pomona's Fairplex venue, the whole soiree a healthy fervor of hometown pride. HARD mirrors its city's eclectic taste on dance-led sounds, creating an experience that feels less like a rave (HARD's ban on kandi made sure of that), and more of a genre-crossing festival that compliments Los Angeles' sophisticated approach to dance music.

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With headlining mega-jocks like Jack Ü, Dillon Francis and RL Grime; underground icons Erol Alkan and Boys Noize; indie-dance "it-band" Caribou; as well as The Chemical Brothers doing their second North American set following a debut at HARD San Francisco, the diversity in music selection also infused new blood into the sea of attendees. Although bands of fresh-faced college kids were present, the overall scope of the crowd was more mature.

The early portion of the festival's kickoff day badly needed a pick-up, with temperatures reaching levels of thermal combustion. Luckily, Shiba San's set of groovy house beats proved to be a stellar party instigator at the hangar-like Pink Stage before Destructo (Gary Richards' DJ alias) took the stage with his dark and dirty stylings.

HARD's rap acts had a rocky start, as fans packed the 7UP Stage for Young Thug only to be informed he wouldn't be performing, with rumors swirling of a possible arrest. Back on the main stage, festival-goers who showed up on time to see Schoolboy Q were rewarded with a set that started almost 30 minutes late. While it was cool to hear him acknowledge his mistake and promise free entry to the first 1,000 fans at his next LA show, being a professional would have been way cooler.

Festival planners also sorely underestimated Rae Sremmurd'sdrawing power, sticking the group in the smallest of the enclosed stages and resulting in a dangerously packed room of pandemonium. As the temperature cooled down to more manageable levels, ODESZA took to the HARD(er) stage for an exceptionally feel-good set, meshing ambient party vibes with their recent remix of ZHU's "Faded."

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HARD had a few tricks up their sleeves. A surprise performer labeled only as "DJ Question Mark" turned out to be DJ Snake, who wasted no time turning the sweat-drenched main stage crowd into Planet Rage. While Snake's surprise was a much-needed energy booster, it sadly led to a sparsely occupied audience for Erol Alkan's ballistic tutorial in acid-tinged electro house.

Luckily, everyone got the memo for what was day one's most storied moment: a live set from The Chemical Brothers. Sans Ed Simons, and against a mesmerizing Kubrick-esque backdrop, Tom Rowlands and longtime visual mastermind Adam Smith captured the masses with material from their new album spliced with old classics like "Swoon" and "Block Rockin' Beats," leading a trip down electronica's memory lane without ever sounding dated. The set was so epic in fact, that Dillon Francis' set, one plagued by technical difficulties, sounded subdued in comparison. The end of day one also brought the tragic news that two teenage attendees had collapsed and died from apparent drug-related causes.

Day two's temperatures were still painfully scorching, but an early trap set from Carmada provided some early rejuvenation to the masses, before Jauz's raucous HARD debut. One of the industry's most promising new faces, Jauz's barrage of bass explosions left little doubt he'll be a main stage fixture at plenty of festivals to come.

Over at the spacious Pink Stage, a giant disco ball hovered over UK man of the moment Jamie xx. While some moments may have been a bit deep for the casual passerby, Jamie seamlessly crafted a smooth set that was best consumed as a complete package. Those who were in it for the long haul were rewarded with an immensely gratifying payoff.

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Read: "Freed from the Stifling Glare of the UK, Jamie xx Shines in LA"

The most memorable act of the day came from Die Antwoord, who dripped the HARD(er) stage in Zef swag. Their wildly entertaining performance included a stage of thrashing, jumpsuit-clad dancers, a Jack Black (!) dance solo, and the duo's brand of amusingly crude vulgarity. Basically, they were the personification of rave.

The previous day's Rae Sremmurd clusterfuck painfully flashed to mind when Boys Noize's ten-year label celebration at the 7UP Stage ended abruptly due to capacity issues. It's admirable that HARD is willing to make in-game adjustments for safety issues but questions about the organizers' ability to map stages out effectively are fair game.

In the festival's closing moments, LA native RL Grime incorporated plenty of crowd-pleasing hip-hop jams alongside his growing catalog of monster hits, before Jack Ü followed suit. The fun-loving duo of BFFs brought forth a main stage performance that's as good as it gets, alternating between goofing around and gleeful banter. Even after his appearance earlier in the year at Ultra, Justin Bieber's cameo at the end of their set still felt a bit out-of-place at a HARD event. But hey—the lines between high profile dance music and pop are officially blurred, so we have to put up with this shit now.

Mycah Seals is the big man on campus, and on Twitter.

With the kinds of subtle tweaks an athlete would experience during off-season, HARD Summer has grown over the last four to five years from a cozy rave in Chinatown to Los Angeles' definitive summertime festival. You can bank not only on the quality of HARD's dance-centric programming, but as evident from this weekend, the application of that taste to genres across the musical spectrum. While HARD has occupied a firm seat at the cool kids' table for quite some time, this year's festival officially pegs them as the big man on campus.