With indie melodies drifting through downtown streets and folks hopping from City Plaza to Moore Square, Raleigh’s annual Hopscotch Music Festival created an electrifying buzz in the city this weekend.

Despite the typical indie-rock genre of the festival, this year’s diverse lineup attracted a wide variety of attendees. Rapper Denzel Curry, who headlined Friday evening, had a set that differed from others at the festival.

Curry was one of the many artists to travel from out-of-state to perform at Hopscotch, and he expressed his gratitude for being in Raleigh to the crowd.

“It feels good to be back in the South,” Curry said.

Other artists also showed their enthusiasm for performing in the City of Oaks.

Pavement’s lead singer, Stephen Malkmus, told the crowd, “It’s always nice to come to this region,” and psychedelic-country singer-songwriter Margo Price said, “Carolina is a good place to be.”

​​Musicians who once called Carolina home were excited to return and play in a familiar Raleigh summer heat. Indie-rock artist Sam Evian delved into his psychedelic soft-rock tunes at Moore Square, telling the crowd he was “trying out new stuff and having fun in the sun.”

“I just performed a heat experiment on my band since it’s like 100 degrees, but it was really nice to play, and it’s good to be back in my home state,” Evian said.

Artists who found their roots in Raleigh also spoke on how rewarding it is to play at the city’s staple music festival.

Travis Harrington, singer in the NC State- originating, four-man-band Truth Club, was grateful for the opportunity to play at City Plaza this year.

“We’ve been lucky enough to play three times now,” Harrington said. “We played our first time [at Hopscotch] when our band formed in 2017 at Neptunes, and last year we played at a club show at the Pour House, and then this year we got to play on the mainstage, which is most truly unbelievable.”

Truth Club’s progression to the main stage at the festival showcased how Hopscotch invests in smaller, local artists, helping them broaden their audience.

“That’s what is cool [about the festival], the people who are involved in organizing Hopscotch are in tune with [highlighting smaller artists],” Harrington said. “I feel like [the organizers] care a lot about younger artists who are starting out. They definitely want to nurture that for sure. … They’ve invested a lot in us in terms of letting us grow and helping us grow by giving us these opportunities.”

The main stages isn’t where all the fun happens, though. Attendees were eager to hear more from the underground music scene and flocked to day and night parties held at local businesses.

At Kings, a downtown live music venue, lengthy lines for performances showed concert-goers’ appreciation for independent artists.

The venue welcomed back rock duo Wye Oak for an intimate performance with a full house. Jenn Wasner, of Wye Oak, expressed how great it felt to be back at the lighthearted festival.

All artists seemed at ease on the stage and appreciative that the festival’s laid-back environment made space for more explorative performances.

“I think that artists who aren’t from here come here to play, and they have an understanding of how cool and special Hopscotch is,” Harrington said. “It probably puts a lot of these artists at ease [when performing], at least the ones that are more on their touring regimen.”

That experimental environment invited listeners to let go and experience authentic, artistic expression.

“Hopscotch is a very, very unique festival,” Harrington said. “It’s very intimate. … You can really kind of dig in and let yourself go somewhere. You can just wander around and truly find something, and it’s normally at a cool place.”

This year’s Hopscotch music festival will go down in history as a landmark event, providing a stage for local and out-of-town musicians to perform for a community that shared the same enthusiasm and energy for the event.

“It’s been amazing so far,” said Tomas Torres, a third-year studying zoology and attendee of the festival. “This is my first ever music festival, my first ever concert really, and it’s been awesome.”