PHOTOS: Beyond Wonderland Brings Electronic Music Fans 'Home' Despite Downpour – Block Club Chicago

Block Club Chicago
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NORTHERLY ISLAND — Though hours of rain drenched the city Saturday, it didn’t dampen the dancing at Chicago’s newest music festival this weekend.
Beyond Wonderland brought electronic music to Northerly Island, Chicago’s urban peninsula, which was coated in inches of sticky, stinky mud.
But the show went on.
“It actually enhanced the experience because it was raining. We survived it,” Tanji Marlowe, first-time festivalgoer from Oak Brook, said Sunday.
“We were like, ‘We’re here, we’re gonna enjoy it,” she said. ” And we did.”
Beyond Wonderland, an “Alice in Wonderland”-themed festival franchise, debuted in Chicago this weekend following multiple iterations on the West Coast and internationally.
The festival is produced by Insomniac, the event company behind festival giant Electric Daisy Carnival.
Artists at the weekend fest included Kaskade, Diplo, Tiësto, Rezz, Of the Trees, Eli Brown, Alesso, Timmy Trumpet, Kayzo, Svdden Death, Jai Wolf, Chris Lorenzo and Audien.
The electronic music ranged from house, techno, bass, hardcore, dubstep and more, performed across four stages, all themed with the fest. Shows began at 2 p.m. and ran through 11 p.m.
Marlowe was in attendance with her best friend, Matthew Y., and the two donned attire fitting for Wonderland. She wore a blue and purple mad hatter costume, and he was decked out as a white rabbit with red-colored contacts, white face paint and ears to match.
Matthew said he’s been attending electronic music shows since 1989.
“Until I found the rave, until I found this, I always felt like an outcast and like I never belonged anywhere,” he said. “I felt at home the very first time I ever walked into this collective of people way back then, and it’s been home ever since.”
See more photos from the festival:
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