Around noon on Sunday, I woke up to achy feet, a distant sound of ringing in my ears and the lyrics to one too many songs stuck in my head: all reminders of a weekend well-spent.
On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, along with thousands of other in- and out-of-towners, I hopped from venue to venue to catch an assorted handful of sets at this year’s Hopscotch Music Festival.
In its seventh year, Hopscotch has made a name for itself in the City of Oaks. Highlighting venues as big as the Red Hat Amphitheater, as intimate as bars like Deep South and as untraditional as Nash Hall, this weekend’s festival also promoted a diverse range of musical genres.
It didn’t take me long to find my place at Hopscotch. With nearly half of the bands reigning from North Carolina and performances ranging from rock, hip-hop, metal, electronic, experimental and more, I was able to see some of my favorite bands while also expanding my musical palette.
Each one of the performances I went to offered something unique and did not disappoint, however, one performance stood out amongst the rest.
Having been an avid follower of Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso since the duo’s inception a couple of years ago, I anticipated their headlining set Saturday night. The Durham bred duo drew a massive crowd, turning the usually quiet City Plaza into a hot, sweaty dance party.
From the minute she stepped out in front of the crowd, Meath held a confident stage presence and never stopped dancing. Sanborn’s rhythmic arrangements were seamless, and exemplified the band’s evocative, electro-pop folk sound.
It was easy to tell that Meath and Sanborn called the Triangle area home. Sanborn’s t-shirt flaunted a boldly printed “FU HB2” and the two reminisced on performances passed and joked about playing to a less-than-hype crowd at the Pour House a few years ago. Overall, the adventurous, fan-friendly and memorable Sylvan Esso captured and embodied the pure essence of Hopscotch.
Aside from the scheduled musical acts, Hopscotch banded together businesses downtown. More than 30 day parties, spontaneous underground performances from bands like Future Islands and Hopscotch’s spinoff design festival showed just how supportive of the arts Raleigh can be.
It was also unique to see a festival hosted by so many venues.
Having only previously been to festivals like Bonnaroo, Forecastle and MerleFest, I was used to staying inside one large, grassy field of stages all housed just a few hundred yards away from one another. Hopscotch was a lot different from these festivals in that it required festival-goers to walk, bike or “hop” a few blocks in-between sets. While this seemed to cause some complaints amongst other festival-goers, I appreciated the diversity in venue choices.
It was also interesting to see how Hopscotch adapted each of their performances to the differently styled venues. It was almost funny to watch a performer like rapper Young Thug take on the stage in the Memorial Auditorium amidst chandeliers and theater seating one night, and fiddle-playing, folk-singing Andrew Bird to perform acoustically on the same stage the next.
The different venues also prompted some unfamiliar issues, since some of the smaller hosting sites had to turn festival-goers away because they had reached their capacity. Because of this, the extensive band list and short festival hours, many festival-goers, myself included, spent each night dropping in to each set for just a few songs.
I wasn’t expecting to enjoy having to leave sets early in order to catch the next one on my list, but this sense of “band tasting” proved to be the best way to go about each night. Ultimately, this fast-paced and efficient course of action let me see everyone I wanted to and more.
In all, between the venue crawling, transcendent performances and homegrown feel, this weekend’s city-wide celebration was nothing short of a perfectly curated Raleigh tradition. And while I still don’t think the full extent of my hearing has come back, I have no regrets from this weekend.
Hip hop artist Anderson .Paak performs at City Plaza during Hopscotch Music Festival on Sept. 9. .Paak headlined the festival alongside Sylvan Esso, Gary Clark Jr. and Vince Staples, among others. The music festival featured 120 bands over three days in several bars and venues around Raleigh.
