By J. David Goodman
The New York Times Blogs
LOS ANGELES — The Hollywood premiere of a documentary about an electronic music festival descended into chaos on Wednesday after police canceled an impromptu block party organized online that drew thousands.
It started on Twitter and ended in mayhem.
The Hollywood premiere of “Electronic Daisy Carnival Experience,” a documentary film about an electronic music festival, descended into chaos on Wednesday after police canceled an impromptu block party organized online that drew thousands to the front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles.
The Hollywood Reporter, on hand to review the new film about a certain slice of underground dance music culture, described the scene as a “near melee” and “nothing short of absolute chaos” from about 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Police in riot gear fought off crowds who came to see well-known California-based DJ Kaskade in a scene recalling the worst music-related riots since Depeche Mode’s ill-fated record signing event in 1990 at the former Wherehouse Music near the Beverly Center.
The video below, apparently shot early in the evening, gives some indication of the gathering tension as a squad car attempted to drive through a dense crowd of costumed and shirtless revelers on Hollywood Boulevard. “Stay out of my way,” the police officer can be heard saying over the car’s public-address system. “Who do you think you are? Get out of my way before you get run over.”
Riot police arrested some in the increasingly rowdy crowd along the city’s Walk of Fame in cinematic scenes captured by the many professional and amateur photographers on hand.
The Los Angeles Times said some in the crowd threw bottles at police while others mocked and taunted them, dancing on squad cars or lying flat across the ground in what is known as “planking,” a pretty much inexplicable Internet meme that is at once irreverent and potentially dangerous.
Some blamed the promoter, Insomniac, for inviting too many people to the premiere. But it appeared that many in the crowd had come after Ryan Raddon, a D.J. better known as Kaskade, announced on his Twitter account that he would be arriving on a truck for an unscheduled dance party.
The entire trajectory of the evening, from excited anticipation to frightened concern to total freak out can be seen in the posts to Mr. Raddon’s account, @kaskade.
The video appears to show part of this performance as well as the moment when his truck pulls away from the crowd to screams of “No!”
Copyright 2011 The News York Times Company