I'm Just an Island Boy Living in Utah who Loves EDM :)

Hello everyone! My name is Kelvin, I'm 28, and I'm from a tiny island in the Pacific called Saipan. It's the main island in a string of islands known as the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Everyone born there is a U.S. citizen, and we all speak English. I'm a writer and an introvert and I love camping, hiking, and backpacking, but I also love the EDM lifestyle and I go to music festivals a lot.

Growing up on the island was nice, and life was much simpler back in those days. However, like many people who grow up in a small town setting, I failed to truly appreciate how good we had it back home and all I could think about as I went through high school was that I couldn't wait to graduate and finally get off that boring rock. My family and I moved off of Saipan the Summer that I graduated from high school. We took up residence in San Jose, California, where we had a pretty large group of relatives who had already been living there for years.

On my 18th birthday, less than two months after moving to San Jose, I bid farewell to my family for the first time ever as I went off to join the Navy. I spent four and a half years in the military, and I made a bunch of lifelong comrades and true friends. My time in the military is what taught me what true friendship really means. I joined ceremonial/honor guard units every chance I got, and really enjoyed any time I could get to play with a rifle. I went on one deployment on a ship and saw some parts of Asia that I hadn't yet been to, as well as some places that I had already visited before. Unfortunately, on that same deployment, my laptop and my phone got stolen, so I no longer have any of the pictures and videos of the crazy fun memories we all made.

It was during my time in the military that I first heard about/got introduced to the world of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). My friend told me he was going to go to something called Freaknight, a Halloween EDM festival in downtown Seattle. I decided to go with him to check it out for myself, and I ended up loving it! I never did anything like that again until after I had finally gotten out of the military, though. After four and a half years, the military life was really taking its toll on me and I had to get out. I moved back in with my family, who were living in LA by then, and started going to college.

During my time living in LA, I got reacquainted with the EDM scene and it became an outlet for me to let all of my frustrations and sadness out. It helped me to cope with and accept that my family didn't know how to deal with me or handle my PTSD episodes. I could just dance it all away and forget about it all for a few hours. I lived that lifestyle for a few years, with EDC Las Vegas 2011 being my first big event after coming back home. Eventually, though, after going to countless shows and even a couple of festivals, after putting in countless hours on making kandi, I got jaded from it all and stopped going to events, and I even stopped paying attention to the EDM world for a while.

Fast forward to the present day, where I have been living in Utah for two years now, and I have recently re-discovered the amazing wonders of the EDM lifestyle. The very first show I saw here in Utah was the Above & Beyond Group Therapy show at the Saltair back in 2015, and that really was the perfect event to bring me back into this scene. I went to a few shows in Utah over the years, but finally decided to make my return to EDC Las Vegas this year. I've been going to a lot of festivals and shows since EDC, and my love for the EDM scene, the EDM lifestyle, has been fully revived. Because of everything that's been happening in my life since I went to EDC, I now even have a deeper understanding of why EDM is so important in our lives today (a subject I plan to delve into in one of my future posts).

Over the course of my festival-going experiences, I've encountered many people from outside the scene criticizing or making fun of ravers and festival goers, regurgitating old lines like "Oh, you people just go to those things and do a lot of drugs and forget about the real world," or "Instead of running away to an escape from it all why don't you actually do something?" It reminded me that not everyone actually understands what our culture is about, and far too often the common misconception is that we're all just a bunch of aimless druggies who like to party and forget about everything else for a while.

Because of that, I've been making it a point to talk to complete strangers at these events, and to ask them about their lives and their dreams and goals. Because I want to show the world that we are real people with real dreams and goals in life, and that we go to these things not merely as an escape from the real world, but so that we can get a glimpse of what the outside world could be like if we all achieved our dreams and made the world the better place that deep down we know it could be.

Basically, my main focus on here is to shed a light on the lives and thoughts of people who go to EDM festivals and raves, and to talk about EDM related things or discuss certain epiphanies relating to EDM, talk about my festival experiences, etc. I will probably be throwing in some other stuff at times, stuff that isn't necessarily EDM related, but for the most part I plan on keeping the majority of my content EDM related. Thank you for sticking with me this long, I hope I didn't bore you to death! I hope you will find my EDM insights and experiences, as well as my festival people profiles, an interesting addition to your life. Thank you for joining me on this journey!