Photo by Annie Lesser

Swedish House Mafia’s latest edition of its Masquerade Motel, a giant two-stage electronic music and DJ extravaganza, was filled with strobes, bubbles, fog machines, pyrotechnics and fireworks that all came from giant pillars scattered across LA Historic State Park. For the first day of Motel, the temperature was in the 50s and it rained the entire day, probably giving multiple scantily clad raver girls pneumonia. The rain decided to stop right in time for Alesso to take the Main Stage and Nero’s Daniel Stephens to take reins of DJing on the Ballroom Stage.
Although no one could un-muddy the ground, the rain did stop, and it began to warm up due to the heating powers of people’s bodies crowding together and dancing their asses off. And if people still weren’t toasty enough, they just shook their bodies near the effects pillars until a fireball shot forth. Swedish House Mafia even commended the girls in bikinis for making it a real party despite the weather.
During his DJ set Daniel Stephens played an unedited version of the ubiquitous hit “Harlem Shake” for a minute while transitioning into a remix of Nero’s hit “Crush On You.” As the latter played, Stephens held a cigarette with one hand while tweaking his board with the other.
Before Swedish House Mafia took the stage, the group took five minutes to take a photo of the audience. SHM began its set behind a giant tarp that had images of water, massive liquid orbs and the band’s signature solar eclipse cut together until suddenly the tarp dropped, the crowd went wild, and the electronic masters bowed from their place atop a podium of screens emitting the visual of black and red confetti falling in slow motion.
Although pandering, the audience ate up every moment of it when, after introducing the effects team, SHM said how much the band loved America by waving giant American flags, projecting stars and stripes on the stage and setting off a Fourth Of July-like red, white and blue fireworks display. At this point SHM played Billboard hit “Don’t You Worry Child,” followed by its 2010 hit “Miami 2 Ibiza,” for which the band had the fans sing a majority of the lyrics.