Lake Day 2024

Cherry Creek State Park Rangers can’t hang, but if you were at our Lake Day a couple of weeks ago, you probably already knew that. Our collaborative debut with Denver EDM Fam was so well-attended that park staff had to turn away droves of people at the entrance. And although we were super bummed that some of our friends didn’t make it through the gates, the energy on that beach was phenomenal the whole way through.

The day started off as a slow burn—literally, it was burning hot—but like moths to a flame, the wooks came for some daytime dirty bass. Even though I’ve been a part of the bass scene for a while now, the feeling of being involved in such a passionate community never gets old. Sometimes when I’m at an event or a show, I’ll take a minute to look around and just silently acknowledge all of the collaboration and creativity that it took to successfully pull something like that off. It often takes months to coordinate everything down to the minute details—something I have come to appreciate even more since my time with Ze Fuss. That being said, seeing it all come to life is when you remember why all that tedious work is so worth it.

Lake Day didn’t come without its hiccups. I’ve come to learn since being on the Ze Fuss team that throwing an event almost always brings some unforeseen crisis or another that needs to be averted. Thankfully, Taylor and Jason are experts in crisis management and problem-solving (they genuinely deserve a PhD in those departments), so you would never even know it from the outside looking in. We had a last-minute venue change, which set off a series of events that required a complete overhaul of plans and a scramble to adapt to the new arrangements. When we heard that Lake Day was definitely a go, we thought we were safe and that our one obligatory catastrophic dilemma had been dealt with, but as it turned out, there was more in store for us.

We quickly found out that the park rangers weren’t expecting such a big turnout for our event and began turning people away at the gate after only a few hours. They were walking up to each individual car waiting to pay their entrance fee, asking if they were there for the “EDM festival,” and telling them to go home if they said yes. While we’re honored that the normies were calling our production a festival, it is a shame that some friends didn’t get to share that day with us. They ended up shutting us down two hours early, but not before Ghastly / Ghengar came on the decks and threw down. In a beautifully serendipitous fashion, Ghastly / Ghengar just happened to be in town and wanted to play some renegades for free, and we feel so lucky that we got to have him at our show. He closed out the day with an extra dirty set, and seeing everyone head-banging in the sand was the perfect way to end it. I guess the lesson to be learned here is that rolling with the punches is an art form, and we are ready to get cultured.