The energy of the audience for Day 2 at Spring Awakening Music Festival easily surpassed the previous day. With this increase in liveliness, however, came an intensification of police and security guard presence in and around Soldier Field. Groups of stressed looking teenagers spread out along the tall fences that lined the perimeter of the festival groups. Looking for any chance to sneak in, these groups of fans were politely escorted away. Arriving to the festival grounds in the early evening, I dodged the excruciating lines at the festival entrance and instead entered from the secret South Gate. Once in, I instantly made my way to the Main Stage to catch Jack U, the American DJ duo made up of electronic music DJ Skrillex and Mad Decent founder Diplo.

It’s no surprise that the audience for Jack U nearly filled the entire standing area of the stadium, with some of the audience trickling out into the seats. As one of the more mainstream DJ duos, Jack U’s set consisted of some of the most famous electronic songs like Lil Jon’s “Turn Down For What” and Major Lazer’s “Lean On.” The crowd was extremely receptive to their mixes, dancing in the light rain mist despite some of the recklessness that was occurring in other parts of the general admission floor.

During some of the more popular songs, rowdy crowd members decided to take their festival experience to an entirely new level. Literally. Scaling the corners of the tremendously tall delay speakers, a few attendees made the tops of these speakers their new vantage point for the festival.  At the same time, security began to struggle with crowd control as dozens of festivalgoers began flinging themselves over the barricade from the seating area down to the dance floor. One security guard was even trampled as a result of being rushed by so many eager fans anxious to see Jack U.

Eventually, the crowd settled down towards the end of Jack U’s set, as they closed with iLoveMakonnen’s “Tuesday.” It seems as though the crowd from Jack U couldn’t get enough of Diplo as his set at the Equinox Stage an hour later was at full capacity. It could almost be argued that attention was stolen from the Main Stage for the next few hours since the crowd was hooked on Diplo’s set complete with classic hits like “Bubble Butt” and “Paper Planes.”

Though the night ended on a rather damp note thanks to a thunderstorm, tired festivalgoers lingered outside of Soldier Field, hoping to make the most of their last day at the festival tomorrow.