Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival Surpasses All Expectations In Magical Debut

When it comes to a new fest, literally everything has to go right; you know what they say about first impressions! Creating a place for over 30 thousand people to come and live for four days is no easy task, especially when these people come in with really high expectations. I came into the weekend with an open mind, unsure what to expect from my first adventure back to the sunshine state since way back when.

Me and my squad opted to arrive a day early to get better camping, and just because why not? When we first got there we were greeted by extremely long lines of people waiting to get to the box office or inside of the grounds. This I kind of expected and really can’t complain about; the staff was working their best to get everybody situated as quickly as possible. Once we were through security we were guided by friendly staffers to our car side camping spot (one of the best perks of the whole weekend), which was rather spacious! The rest of Thursday was spent setting up shop, exploring the venue and enjoying the Florida weather. Being in a car for 14 hours will take its toll on you, plus I wanted to be ready for the rest of the weekend, so I crashed pretty early the first night.

Day two started off bright and early with some egg rolls from one of the vendors; dankest egg rolls I’ve ever had in my life. My favorite performance of day 1 had to be Nahko & Medicine For The People, they were jamming out the whole set playing a variety of tunes. From their most popular songs all the way down to some Bob Marley; the track selection and flow of this set was on point! Coming in at second has to be a tie between Bassnectar and RL Grime, both of these dudes threw down heavy. I’ve seen the former multiple times but this was my first time seeing a full set from the latter. Both DJs played particularly trappy sets; I expected this from RL but was a little taken back by the song selection of Nectar. Don’t get me wrong, it was hype and I loved every second, I’ve just never witnessed a set like this one from him before. The energy was super high the whole time he was playing and ending with “Don’t Hate The 808” definitely left everybody buzzing. Something else I had the pleasure of witnessing that you definitely don’t get to see everyday is Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters. You already know Plant blessed the crowd with some classic Zeppelin hits like: “Whole Lotta Love” and “Trampled Under Foot.”

Saturday was one of the more interesting days for sure, but what do you expect on day three of a four day camping fest? Everybody was (hopefully) familiar with the grounds by now and fully ready for what Okeechobee had prepared for us! In my opinion, Skrillex stole the spotlight when he closed out the main stage, although the whole day was filled with awesome performances, nothing came close. The overall production was on point and the effort he put in to making sure everybody enjoyed it was apparent. Im still stoked I got the chance to hear him play two of my forever favorites from him, “Make It Bun Dem” & “Right In.” Another huge set of the night came from a duo that has been under the microscope recently, Big Gigantic. To keep it real, I’ve seen them quite a few times in the past year and I have zero complaints about what they’re doing. Haven’t heard the same set or even two sets that sounded relatively similar and they definitely brought the heat down to Florida. Dom and Jeremy always play a high energy/soulful set; we all know that, but I was caught off guard when they started dropping songs like the Sub Focus remix of “Hold On” and the Ookay remix of “Hotline Bling.” I’m not complaining either because even though I was surprised, the transitions were flawless and the delivery was spot on. 100% recommend you catch a festival set from Big G this summer if you have the opportunity!

I gave big praise to the people who put this on from the jump for not lacking in the rap department so it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t mention how Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller crushed it. When it comes to rappers who put on a good live performance these two are up there with the best of ’em. Nobody likes it when “performers” go up on stage in front of thousands who payed to see them and don’t use the microphone in their hand. Not what you get from these guys, for sure two of the most vocal rap shows I’ve ever seen. Mac did his Trump spiel before playing “Donald Trump” and Kendy got inspirational in between some songs, and I think that’s good because they both have a message bigger than just music. Hearing “Money Trees”, “m.A.A.d. city” (TWICE!) and a couple other tunes off the same album is certainly something I’ll never forget.

A feeling that nobody looks forward to but we’re all too familiar with, that dreaded last day of the festival. Most of my Sunday was spent at the “Now” stage which conveniently hosted all of my favorite acts for the day. This, by the way, was actually super clutch considering it’s day four and my body is running on fruit snacks and no hours of sleep. First up came Post Malone who drew out a crowd of people who came to hear one song and one song only. I can’t even be mad that the majority of the people there only knew “White Iverson” because it is his only tune on the radio, plus it was dope to hear the entire audience screaming the lyrics. He also gave a shoutout to A$AP Yams before he did “Too Young” which the crowd loved, big ups to him for that! Immediately after he was done we were supposed to get Fetty Wap but he had a family emergency (I believe) so Kill The Noise, who was originally scheduled for Saturday, filled in-I’ll take it. He threw down a real heavy set, but to be honest the vibe was a little off because the sun was still up and a set with that energy always fairs better at night.

Either way, Future was up next so it was refreshing to get a change of pace. Before the founder of Freebandz took the stage, DJ Esco, the coolest DJ in the world came out for a quick 15 minute hype session and got everybody lit. Future ended up coming out to “Gucci Flip Flops” and the crowd was already hype so you know it went off. His time on stage was full of classics by him like “Move That Dope”, “Fuck Up Some Commas” and countless others. Judging strictly off crowd activity, this was hands down one of the most turnt spectacles of the weekend. Next up was one of the most nostalgic performances I’ve seen in a while, Big Grams. Ive seen the combo of Big Boi and Phantogram on basically every major festival lineup this season so I knew it had to be the real deal, but I was still unsure exactly what to expect. I heard them do a lot of the songs they recently collaborated together on but was surprised to hear throwbacks like “Ms. Jackson” and “The Way You Move”. Since I’m not a huge fan of Mumford & Sons, my night at the main stages ended with Odesza and I was perfectly cool with that. It’s aways a pleasure catching them at a festy because they set the vibe like no other and this instance was no different.

All in all, I give Okeechobee a 10/10, everything was impeccable and I couldn’t have dreamed up a better way to kick off festy season. When I say it was perfect, that is not an exaggeration by any means; we are already anxiously awaiting some news about round 2! Stay tuned because you know as soon as we get word we will have it up for you guys. Go peep their socials/website to get a better idea of what this crazy weekend was all about.

Until next time Okeechobeings!

Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival Facebook/Twitter/Website

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