You know how people like to make fun of Illenials for crying their heart out at Illenium’s sets? Well, I never really understood that phenomenon…until it finally happened to me at Electric Forest this year during Said the Sky’s set at Tripolee on Day One. I guess I should preface this by explaining that my life before going to Electric Forest this year was a complete and total mess. The first half of this year was full of struggles and stress and pain and uncertainty. I was working a dead-end job where I was expected to work my ass off and fill in for shifts all the time because we were so short-staffed, I wasn’t being paid what my work was worth, and I was just not happy with life anymore.
I noticed that the things that used to bring me so much joy and pleasure in life had suddenly become dull and uninspiring for me. I shifted into hermit mode and became very lonely and stopped trying to hang out with my friends and my rave fam because I had convinced myself that I would just be a drain on everyone because I was stuck in such a dark cloud of despair and depression. Every day became a struggle to get up out of bed and do productive things. There were mornings when I’d wake up and just lay in bed not moving for hours. I was losing all hope for my life and it really felt like I was slowly dying day by day, merely existing and waiting for my time to come. I felt so disconnected from everything and everyone and it really felt like my life was going nowhere and that there was no point to my existence anymore. My friends who noticed my state of despair encouraged me and told me, “Just wait for Forest, just hold out until then and everything will be alright.”
They were right. I’ll hold off on the entire story of my Electric Forest adventures this year for a later post, as I want this post to be specifically about how Said the Sky brought me back to life and gave me hope for living again. Going into Electric Forest this year, Said the Sky was one of the sets that I absolutely knew I could not miss. I’ve been a fan of his ever since I first discovered him at Das Energi Festival 2017 in Salt Lake City when he played a sunset set on the main stage, and my appreciation of him and his music only grew stronger as time went on. So at Electric Forest this year on Day One, when I realized that my friends Bailey and Azmi were heading over to Tripolee to go see him, I immediately followed behind them and they guided me in my disoriented state over to his set. Little did I know at the time, that they had guided me to the place where my life would change forever.
We got to Tripolee right as Said the Sky was starting his set, and we immediately started dancing and vibing to his music. After a few songs, I was so caught up in the music that I didn’t even realize that my friends who brought me there had left to go see a different set. I was alone in a sea of people I didn’t know, and a part of me wanted to leave to go find my friends because I had originally intended to spend as much time as possible at Electric Forest with my rave fam, but I was enjoying the set way too much to actually care enough to move from my spot. It was at the height of my loneliness that something truly magical happened to me that would forever change my understanding of music and the way it truly changes lives and affects people.
I’m really hoping that Said the Sky releases his setlist for that night, or that someone uploads a video of his whole set somewhere, because the one detail about all of this that I can’t for the life of me remember is the song that started it all for me, the song that triggered these feelings in me and caused a reaction that I had never before experienced in all my years of raving. But I know that if I could just listen to that set again, the full memories will come flooding back and I’ll know exactly which song worked its magic on me.
At the height of his set, he played a song and I was really feeling it so much that I closed my eyes to vibe out to it for a while, and next thing I knew, I felt this huge rush of emotion come over me. It was like this sea of beautiful pain and anguish flooded my body and I was completely overcome by the emotions of the song, and next thing I knew, without even thinking about it or trying to process what was happening to me, my heart shattered into a million pieces and suddenly an ocean of tears was pouring out of my eyes as I began to bawl my eyes out and right there in the middle of all those people enjoying Said the Sky’s set. I couldn’t quite understand what was happening at first, or why I was crying so damn hard, but I let the tears flow for a while and then I started to laugh and cry at the same time as the realization hit me and I finally started to understand what was going on.
I had a flashback to a video I saw on Facebook a while back of an Illenial bawling his eyes out and smiling during an Illenium set, and it was in that moment that I finally understood why he was crying. It was in that moment that I finally understood why they cry so hard during his sets. It was this video, and I imagine I was probably making a lot of the same faces as this guy and feeling a lot of the same things:
This was it. The power of music. This is what happens to Illenials during Illenium’s set, this is why they always end up crying buckets of tears at his shows. It was in that moment, during that realization, that I felt like I had come alive again. I looked around with tears still in my eyes (I legit could NOT stop crying, and I honestly didn’t mind it) and saw countless other people singing and dancing their hearts out to Said the Sky’s music, and it suddenly dawned on me. THIS is what it feels like to be alive. THIS is what life is about. FEELING. Being revived in a whirlwind of emotions.
In that moment, all of the disconnectedness I had been feeling prior to Electric Forest this year completely went out the window. It was in feeling the heartbreak of Said the Sky’s music that I had the grand epiphany that our collective suffering on this planet and the pain and sadness that we all feel is what connects us all to each other and reminds us that we are not alone in this big bad crazy world. And in that moment, I felt HAPPY. Truly happy to be alive, to be at that stage surrounded by thousands of other people who felt a similar way. I felt connected to everyone there, a connected feeling that I had not felt in a very long time leading up to Electric Forest 2019.
It was a truly transcendental moment for me, I felt like I was on cloud nine just floating up above everyone else. In many ways it felt very similar to an ego death; in those moments I felt like I was no longer myself, this person inhabiting this physical body on Planet Earth. I literally felt like I was a glowing golden Buddha who had achieved enlightenment and finally understood the secrets of life. It was like my soul had left my body to return to the All That Is and suddenly I was one with everything and everyone again. I am still struggling today to really put the whole experience into words that can truly capture the magic of what happened to me that night during Said the Sky’s set at Tripolee, but hopefully this recollection provides you with some idea of how much of an impact it had on me.
I left that set feeling more alive than I had felt in a very long time, and couldn’t wait to find my friends so that I could tell them all about the magic that had just happened to me. Thank you so much, Trevor Christensen, for being who you are and for producing such amazing music that really reaches deep into a man’s soul and makes him feel alive again. Your set at Electric Forest this year was my #1 highlight of the festival and honestly it set the bar so high that none of the other sets I saw that weekend, no matter how amazing they all were, could even come close. You will always be one of my favorite producers of all time because you helped me to come alive again when I thought there truly was no hope left for me in this world and I thought I was truly alone.
The memory of Said the Sky’s set and what transpired will forever be etched into my mind as the most significant thing that’s ever happened to me in all my ten years of raving. I honestly don’t know how anything could possibly ever top that, but the Universe always surprises me when I least expect it. Unfortunately, I only have one video of the entire set, and it’s super short, because I was truly living in the moment and enjoying every second of what was happening so I didn’t even think to pull out my phone again to record more footage. So if anyone reading this happens to have some footage of his set, PLEASE send it to me. It would truly mean the world to me.
Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read about my experience during Said the Sky’s set at Tripolee during Electric Forest 2019 Day One. Hopefully this story resonates with you and is a much happier story than the epic tale of my misadventures with getting home from Electric Forest this year. If you enjoyed reading this story, please resteem/share this post!