“I shook it like I’ve haven’t shaken it in years,” Philip said as he puffed his Cuban.
We were sitting on a wooden bench on the moon-lit beach just next to Hangout Festival listening to Philip and his son recount their tour of the Gulf coast. They spent the beginning of the week eating, drinking and learning their way from Grand Isle to New Orleans and then whimsically gunned it east to Gulf Shores for the festival where Philip proceeded to dance it up at Benny Benassi’s headlining set on Thursday night.
The Australians asked for help smoking their arm-length stogies. It was a restful break for the beginning of a long, long series of outdoor shenanigans.
Thursday was a “pre-party” event before the official festival dates with acts that could have headlined any respectable venue. It started with indie groups from synth pop rockers Reptar to the performance art of Quixotic, an electric violin and drum duo. Quixotic’s music wasn’t the most inspired of the day, but with a Violinist dressed to star in Clockwork Orange and a drummer who appeared in tribal garments and facial paint, they knew how to catch the eye. The true magic of the show came with acrobatic and gypsy dance pieces by several attractive and impressively talented gymnasts.
Jammy electronic dance tunes filled the air for the remainder of the afternoon and night from groups like Conspirator, Lotus, Umphrey’s Mcgee, and Benny Benassi.
(FRIDAY)
By Friday afternoon the flood gates of the Gulf Coast had opened. Thursday’s crowd of about 3 thousand seemed to burst to the 35000 who had come for the main event. The widened festival space accommodated the growing numbers of enthusiastic concert goers as they flowed out into the beach area that housed the two main stages.
With huge headlining acts alternating between the two beach side stages, fans found themselves trudging back and forth across a nearly mile-long strip of beach from show to show.
“It’s gotta be damn near a half a mile,” an older cowboy-hatted man slurred to me as he double fisted his Budlight tall boys.
The strolls were surreally tranquil. With the wind that rushed up continuously from the Gulf and music that beckoned fans to the long walk, the beach sang with every step.
And attendees had little issues adapting to the increasingly warmer climate. By Friday nearly every body was decked in some kind of bathing suits. Shirts were carried more than worn, acting as a tether to the real life that lay outside the gates.
Attendees huddled to the front of stages to hide from sunburns in the shade which, sparse at first, grew each evening to engulf the gulf.
“Just got a few more minutes, till it hits us,” one Alabama University KA pledge commented as everyone waited for Jim James to take the stage.
“It’s cool that he’s doing his own thing, but I’d really like to see the whole band [My Morning Jacket],” he said as he pulled back ear-length curly hair with his headband.
He felt similarly about Trey Anastasio of Phish, who also had a new album to showcase for Hangout.
While James composed and produced his debut solo album, the performance saw him hyping and emphasizing instrumentation from his solo band mates. They were all dressed to impress in business suits and ended the show more drenched in sweat than the fans.
James shred on his Gibson Flying V and took time on the saxophone as well, at other times dancing around the stage cracking the crowd up with facial expressions or giving band mates space to soak up attention with cool grooves and solos.
James’ bass player particularly grabbed some attention with some synthesized bass soloing that accompanied his groovy business suit and classy smile.
Anastasio similarly let his band shine, particularly his trumpeter who belted the rapped verses of the Gorillaz “Clint Eastwood” like a hip-hop Adele.
The rest of Friday was filled with anticipated bands of scattered genres. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis saddled the only tented stage as they strolled out to their first performance in Alabama.
“Hangout Fest don’t’ give a fuck,” Macklemore proclaimed. “Throw the best parties.”
The crowd leapt and yelled through the first song or so of their set, and as “Thrift Shop” began the fans produced a fur coat for the emcee at his request.
While the hip-hop duo was taking the stage indie experimental rockers Grizzly Bear finished their first show in Alabama.
“This is a very memorable type of festival, relaxed, with the waves,” said keyboardist Edward Droste. “Wish we could stay the whole time.”
The band took the stage dressed in beached-out Bahama button ups and fed the chill vibe with continually harmonized vocals layered with synthesizers, ambient guitar work and an overall relaxing tunes.
From there, fans had a choice of pre-cursing the headlining Kings of Leon with music ranging from grungy blues jams of Anders Osborne to the electronic drops and synthed brass of the party filled Big Gigantic. But with one headlining performance, many fans understandably grabbed spots for the two hour-long final set.
Kings of Leon showed an epic presentation. Along with a visually impressive set up of lights and huge video screens with image effects, the presence of nearly everyone at the festival made the show seem immense.
The Kings enthusiastically played through favorites off of “Only by the Night” and “Because of the Times” with some improvised guitar riffs from Mathew Followill before ending their set with fireworks. The set ended thirty minutes early and a firework show capped the night off.
(SATURDAY)
“Oh, you’ll dance,” Peter was telling me as we walked to the car Friday night. “Because it’s the only reasonable course of action.”
We were pretty underwhelmed by Kings of Leon, particularly for cutting their show short. So we were already discussing plans to see Bassnectar Saturday. I agreed with Peter; like in the past, I’d probably forget my aversion to dancing by that time. So we decided we were going to nuance our way to the front for that show.
We managed great spots for one of the most enthusiastic and musically talented performances of the weekend by the Roots before finally clamoring to the front of the barricades for the anticipated DJ. After the roots we found ourselves surrounded by south Louisiana natives. To the left, there were students from the University of Lafayette garbed in Bassnectar symbols and to the right, there were some friends from Zachary, and New Orleans, two of whom were amateur djs.
By sunset, Lorin Ashton took the stage, sending instant, rattling vibrations straight through the crowd. Bassnectar kept fans moving constantly, whether people were whipping around violently, jumping up and down or just grooving, with just one break the entire set. The dj capped his set off with a remix of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” leaving fans calling for an encore, and later, still waiting around to discuss their satisfaction and deafness.
I felt at home with the wealth of Southern Louisianans which abounded. Friday night I dropped by Anders Osborne’s performance to catch the New Orleans blues man who had been playing festivals all year including Voodoo Fest and Jazz Fest. He’s a European native, but he claims New Orleans as his home since he’s lived there since 1985.
He looked the part too. His three piece band took the stage looking like typical New Orleans bar dwellers in flip flops, jeans, low-lying baseball hats scraggly facial hair, and a Gov’t Mule t-shirt or two. But they took off from the get-go with heavy blues party rock, hyping each other up as Anders and his bassist often faced each other during some shredding.
Their stage was appropriately placed outside the Hangout Bar at the center of the festival with a patio crammed with fans decked in fleur-de-lis. By the time his band finished with a funky reggae cover of “Knockin’ on Heavans Door,” the crowd was fervently dancing around with seemingly hometown pride.
I saw a younger New Orleans crowd Saturday when waiting for the Dirty Projectors. One tall guy sporting an Isidore Newman t-shirt from his high school in New Orleans told me this was his second year at the festival that he’s come to really enjoy.
“This is starting to be a thing for Newman kids, to come here every year now,” he said. “It’s right after school gets out, it’s a nice vacation.”
Like others, he was vocally enthusiastic about the festival and the band’s he was here to see, including the Dirty Projectors.
“I was expecting more people to be here,” he said as we scanned the crowd over waiting for the show.
David Longsreth took the stage with his band of beautiful women with beautiful voices, and played tightly and enthusiastically through experimental tempo changing rock tunes seasoned with gliding female vocals. However, the Brooklyn based outfit found themselves a little awkward in between songs at the southern beach venue.
“You need some fierce SPF out here,” Longsreth said. “This beach is like a lobster.”
His keyboardist tried to help.
“How’s it going ya’ll?” she asked. “That’s what you say down here, right?”
From event workers to beach bums outside the festival, everyone was pretty fixed on watching some music. A yacht and three other boats had already anchored themselves at a spot in the Gulf where they could see the two main stages.
A tall, tattooed, Montgomery man told me that was pretty normal.
“There were a ton of those yachts all anchored together to catch the shows last year,” he said.
As I passed through media areas event workers constantly greeted me with grins. And it wasn’t abnormal to see them dancing to the music or just casually talking to people in the crowd.
One worker, Levon, stopped me as I was walking past a barricade to leave. He said he needed to talk to someone, and I obliged.
“White people aren’t like this where I’m from,” the rural Mississippi native told me. “This is real different for me. I like the aura here. People are just here to chill out and listen to music.”
And there were certainly a lot of people chilling out for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. The crowd reached nearly all the way back to the middle of the beach strip, between the two main stages. I previously overheard some complaints at Bassnectar over having to sacrifice a good spot for Tom Petty to see Bassnectar, and I finally saw why.
Petty and his band played a crowd pleasing show, covering all of his hits from “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” to “Refugee” and “Runnin Down a Dream.” They also covered “Friend of The Devil” to much of the crowd’s delight.
His band played impressively as well, especially guitarist Mike Campbell who took several opportunities to layer the band’s classics with impressive licks and some slide guitar.
(Sunday)
Sunday seemed to fly by amid anticipation for Stevie Wonder. A hot, sticky Saturday faded into an overcast and semi-breezy Sunday afternoon by the time The “Boom-Boom” tent packed itself tight for Bauer. The DJ ripped through “Harlem Shake” to send attendees in into a flailing frenzy.
With Porter Robinson and Steve Aoki on deck, the audience had the option of raging into the few remaining hours of the festival, kicking back for some familiar alternative, or checking out impressive instrumentation from bands like Galactic or Trey Anastasio in preparation for Stevie Wonder.
I’m pretty sure Ellie Golding cured some hangovers with her serene voice, but she amped up the energy as well, banging on percussion and throwing down a bass-heavy twist to “Lights.”
Stevie wonder took to the stage with a keytar and a big smile, busting into Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet it is” after playing along with his band for a few. From that moment on, the show lacked dull moments. When he wasn’t banging through classics in a theme of love from some of his favorite artists (“The Way You Make Me Feel,” by Michael Jackson “Is This Love,” by Bob Marley, “Imagine,” by John Lennon), he was inspiring the crowd with personal story telling.
“All I want to do is bring people together,” Wonder said.
And he did his best to accomplish that by vocally engaging the crowd in his music. He often beckoned call and response with unique vocal rhythms or just by asking the crowd to sing the verses to his most famous songs. He also made engagement more complex by asking men to sing different patterns than women, all the while swooping his head from left to right in satisfaction.
This didn’t distract the crowd from busting out the best dance moves of the weekend for hits like “Higher Ground” or an encore performance of “Superstition.”
By the time the show finished, Wonder had briefly weeped in appreciation for his fans, announced his daughter’s engagement and helped to bring the crowds at Hangout together like no one else.
“I’m here because of the love you gave me for what God gave me,” he told the crowd. “There’s nothing impossible.”
As I stood at the exit rows of fans poured though the gates with the biggest smiles of the weekend. Many of them high-fived the event workers on the way out if they weren’t giving out hugs, and hundreds joined in the singing of “Give Me One Reason to Stay Here,” as the song played over exit speakers.
At that moment it became apparent the festival had fostered a unique community after four years of service. Despite taste or reasons for being there, everyone including the workers seemed to be enjoying themselves, and satisfied with what they had just witnessed.
With friendly crowd and event workers, a location as the only beach side festival in North America and an impressive, four-day-long lineup, Hangout has grown into a truly special experience.  
Pictures can be found at…
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