The day you get back from a music festival is a fantastic day. You get to lay on your own floor, let your ears equalize, and get back to a state of normality. That first day back is also the time when you get to tell everyone just how amazing the whole thing was and if it’s you’re first festival ever people are very concerned about how it was. “So how was your first festival?”

This is my official answer.
 

Day1

It rained and poured on the way over there. “We’re going to get absolutely soaked” I said to Eric (EGM) as we walked toward the check-in. My shoes had already opened the floodgates and my poor socks were the victim of such an action. All before even walking into the place. Once I got my bracelet, we stood in line to get in line for the security check (It was weird). Avoiding puddles was like playing the floor is lava with no furniture. I just gave up hope and accepted it. I was there to listen to music louder than ever before. Not complain about some stupid socks. “Actually,” I told myself “here’s a better idea. How about you just throw away the socks. They’re not going to get any more dry. No regrets.” Which had become a decision making justification for lots of the shows I saw. I threw away my socks and went right into the Float Den for the first festival act I have ever seen: G Jones.
 

GJones

Front row for this one. It’s my first time, you best believe I’m going to be there Beatmaker, producer, slayer of rhythm. He’s a common collaborator with Bleep Bloop who would have made a great B2B type addition to this show, but he was played enough in the set to pretty much be considered right there next to GJones. Their Mind EP is killer. Definitely give it a listen. What G Jones played was first and foremost trap music, but there was some dubstep that went right in there like the Bassnectar he played. His remix of Don’t hate the 808s was very welcome to my ears. It was insane beats from so many artists and the bass that presented itself to my fragile ears seemed to have been tuned to rattle my head perfectly. The subs pushed air. I’m not joking when I say I was cooled off by the subs. It was awesome. The visuals set the tone for all the visuals in the Float Den. I don’t know how they coordinated what went on, but it seemed that every artist that played the Float Den had graphics they ripped right out the mid 1990s. Like surfing the web with internet explorer on your mom’s Windows XP work computer graphics.
 

The entire festival was a lot more closed in than I imagined. It’s in a huge space, don’t get me wrong, but for whatever reason I figured everyone would have space to move around and be their own beings. Oh was I so wrong. It was alright for the first few hours when things were calm and only half of all the venues would be getting use. But as the sun went down, the space filled and it became much harder to move without having to find some really big dude to play moses for you. There were people everywhere. I knew what to expect inside the venues, but what I did not anticipate was how packed it always is in the common areas. Or the food prices. HIghway robbery I swear.
 

Break Science

At this point, I’m still trying to figure out how I’m supposed to catch all the acts I want to see. I ran over to The Ballroom to see a bit of Break Science. I saw about 10 minutes of them, but from what I saw, it was awesome. I mean they were playing pretty great music. I wouldn’t say much of what I saw was super awesome and spectacular, but it was Break Science. They do what they do and they do it well. Keyboards, loops, and drums with contact triggers to fatten everything up. It all just makes sense and that’s what this show was. I didn’t hear my favorite Ray Charles and Fugees mashup, but I don’t even know if I just missed it while watching G Jones. Whatever. No regrets.
 

Trying to get to all the shows you want is difficult. I had no concept of when would be a good idea to leave one show cause they might play that one song that I really wanted to hear. I actually worried about this before the festival and for good reason. There was so much talent present it’s so hard to pick a favorite. Like picking a favorite child.
 

Anderson .Paak

I waited up front for this show for a while. I definitely wanted to get a good view of this guy. His DJ played a small set while the stage hands picked up the set from Break Science. He played Mr. Carmack and I melted. I have never heard Carmack that loud. He played Solutions ft. Donnis which I heard a few more times in sets throughout the weekend. I absolutely cannot complain about that. I will never tire of Carmack.

“YES LAWD”

Anderson came on stage once his first song got played by the DJ and he began to sing his heart out to his recent Malibu album. That’s when this show turned into a survey. I’m talking feedback central. You can ask anyone about my disdain for feedback. To me, there is absolutely nothing worse. I can’t even hold my tongue when guitar players really try for that feedback sound. I really show my old person side when I say that most of the time, feedback in that sense is just noise and it has the ability to ruin a performance. Which happened in the Ballroom when Anderson got on the mic. It’s like hearing the Wilhelm scream during a movie. It just takes you out of the whole thing. One second you’re enjoying the smooth sound of Put Me Through and the next you’re enjoying the sound of a high pitch squeal that could have totally been avoided somehow. Not pointing fingers though. I don’t know what the behind the scenes looked like. I actually left this one early because of the feedback and I wouldn’t even say that I saw a true Anderson .Paak performance. I saw a technological struggle in action.
 

Sunset between the river and the factory was an event to behold. It was a bit like a grand gesture from the sky saying “I’m okay with this event. Please accept my apology for raining on you all day and enjoy this view of sunbathed clouds behind your stage.” It was gorgeous. The rain had stopped, the cold was beginning to settle in and it was approaching nighttime.
 

Tokimonsta

Oh boy have I been sleeping on this one. What a fantastic collection of music that was played at this show in the back alley which is by far the coolest venue at the festival. Through that show, I found out how good her and KRNE are. I’ve liked KRNE for a while and never really knew he had a good relationship with Tokimonsta. I usually hear him with people like Alexander Lewis and they make those odd jangly bangers. This came as a surprise but the show was great. She played a lot of really hype tunes and even invited Anderson .Paak out to sing on Put it Down. Unfortunately for him, they were having issues with the mic at the Back Alley for the duration of the entire festival.

Technology:2 Anderson: 0. Sadface. The rest of it was great though. Top quality music from Toki.
 

I really think that one would need like two re-runs of a festival to get everything out of it they really want. I found myself again and again not being able to see all the acts I really like to the fullest extent (front row, duh). Whatever though. I quickly learned that I should not have any doubts about the decisions that I made in terms of what shows I chose over the other. You do you and that’s the best way to handle a festival.
 

Baauer

Another trap/house show. Really not much to say about it. I mean he played exactly what you would expect Baauer to play. Lots of banger type music that got the crowd super hyped about everything. It was awesome.

Day 2
 

I don’t know New Orleans. Every time I’m down there, it’s just for a day for a field trip or just one specific purpose. Getting lost in New Orleans is extraordinarily stressful as I found out the morning of day 2 of the festival. What I also found out is how beautiful the city is. Every little part of what I saw was another odd piece of architecture with even stranger color choice. It was all so intimate and cinematic in a perfect way (in my opinion). I found great joy in just watching the houses pass by and taking in what sort of history is contained within each one.
 

Froyoma

Local hero performing at the coolest stage at BUKU. It was awesome. If you’ve ever heard the music he makes and you like it, you would love the show he put on. I mean, it was nothing special visually. It was him and an APC40 and a laptop. Nothing crazy, but being by the river on a beautiful, breezy day with very few people around all listening and vibing to this music was incredibly wonderful. It was a simple show and that’s what made it great. It was a perfect way to start off the day.
 

I think by this time, I knew what I wanted out of the day. I had a difficult decision to make at the end of it, but for now I had a good idea of where everything was and how the event was running and what kind of timing I needed to have in order to get the most out of what I was here for. It was still way too much for me to get it all in. I still didn’t get to visit everything because I was busy enjoying the big music acts. There was just so much to do. Honestly. Could it have been too much? Certainly not.
 

What So Not

I’ve been telling people this has been my favorite show of the whole thing. I really don’t know if that is true. It was up there but again the dilemma of picking a favorite is daunting. It’s like asking someone what their favorite album or song is. It’s incredibly difficult and there are different reasons for liking everything and disliking stuff about that think you like. It’s all so blurred and just there that it becomes almost an unfair question. I don’t think I’ve ever given the same answer to either of those questions. It’s a very in the moment thing. Tastes change. Getting back to something of substance, What So Not was great. Even from the far left side near the soundbooth. He played some great music including some that were basically a requirement from him like Tell Me. It’s necessity. There was a crazy metal cover of it which I totally wasn’t expecting but it was still kinda cool. I dunno. It kinda took me out of it and I like that song almost too much to see it changed up so much. It was weird. Okay. I didn’t like it but for the second drop of the song he played the real version and I got hyped. This show was another visual addition to the WinXP motif I mentioned earlier. Lots of low resolution pizzas everywhere and late 80s early 90s color squiggles. Cool stuff all around. Much energy was added to me at that show.
 

It’s tough to really nail down specifics for this event. I hope that has become apparent so far (If you’ve even made it here). I was trying to explain it to someone today as like a test that you have to cram for and you have unfortunately waited until the last minute to do so. You have a basic overall idea of what’s going on, but you can’t really pinpoint the names and dates. That’s how I feel about BUKU. For me, it was just a flurry of action and motion that I can’t remember what all the setlists were and what kind of special things went on in each set. I honestly don’t like that it is all mushed together like that. I wish I was able to know every song that I heard and remember it how it was played. Unfortunately, I think there are very few people who can actually do that. I doubt even groupies can.
 

Feed Me

I have wanted to see Feed Me for a while. His works in the bass house genre are awesome and he knows precisely how to work at that tempo to maintain maximum hype as well as fluid bass mechanics. The only thing that disappointed me for this set was the fact that he didn’t have his grin. Seriously, that was just about 40% of the reason I wanted to see this guy. I’ve seen it in so many live shows online and every single time it’s so cool. But nah. He either didn’t bring it, or they didn’t let him. Either way I was saddened until the music started. He played a great amount of electro house. Enough to get everyone moving so they could feel the harder stuff that he planned to play. He had his collaboration with Kill the Noise in there somewhere I do Coke with Feed Me. That’s a song I actually really enjoy. Usually I don’t like songs where drugs are the most blatant focus of a song, but this one is one that gets me going. Like I said, Feed Me knows what he’s doing with that tempo and he sure showed it.
 

I actually took a slight break after this one. It was an intense show and I had more lined up after in the same venue so I wanted to make sure that I could survive without wanting to give up. I got to sit back and enjoy other things about the event. The street art that had been worked on all of yesterday and today. That was some crazy stuff. It all looked so cool and they had bids going on for all of it. Hundreds of dollars going into these paintings mostly commemorating this year’s festivities. Just awesome.
 

Datsik

Like I said in the preview, I have been waiting an incredibly long time to see a show like Datsik. I haven’t seen a straight dubstep show. Before this festival, my experience covered RL Grime, Keys n Krates, Snarky Puppy, Floozies, Gramatik. Stuff like that. This was the first show that I’ve seen that I have wanted to see since like 2009. It was a big moment for me. It was awesome. There were only a couple of songs that I didn’t like. Including his recent song with Snoop Dogg. Seeing it live didn’t even change my mind. I actually genuinely just don’t get anything from that song. That and the Red Hot Chili Peppers song he played at the end just wasn’t something that I wanted to hear. I know he has done it in the past and for god knows what reason that’s a popular thing to do at electronic shows. I guess cause it’s something that everyone can sing along to or something like that. I dunno. It wasn’t me. Aside from all that, the show was everything I wanted. For the first time, I held up my X while he played Robo Kitty by Excision. That was a proud moment for me. It was total bass pumping, head rattling, air moving hype machine. The mixing got a bit repetitive, but that’s to be expected at a dubstep show like this. You get drop after drop after drop in the same 32/16/8 bar configuration for the majority of it. I’m cool with that. I was happy to get that because I wanted to see what it was like to be right there for that. And I was right there. Front row. Waited an hour after Yellow Claw ended to get that front row spot. It was totally worth it. I can finally put that desire to rest and go see artists that put more variety into their mixes. Ooh. Burn.
 

Nero

This was kind of a show that was like, “Well I’m here and I don’t really want to give up this prime location so I’ll stick around. Everyone else is done. I can’t catch Cashy Cat so why not.” I know what kind of music Nero makes and I used to enjoy it a lot. It was a great introduction into melodic electronic music and what that could do to my feels. That kind of stuff hasn’t really held my attention captive like other music recently. That’s about how I felt about this show. I knew very well how big it was and what kind of experience I was seeing unfold in front of me, but it just wasn’t something I was about to watch for 2 hours. I think I left after they played Innocence. A great song and probably my favorite by them, so after that I lost interest and it was super hot and gross in the Float Den after all the ragers it had gone through that day so I was eager to get out into the fresh, cool air.
 

I sat down with the group of veteran BUKU attendees (think 4 years) that I had seen the majority of these shows with to chill out before heading home. A nice sit down and brief recap of the event was a great way to punctuate the experience. Overall, I would say it was certainly something. Never done it before. Will most likely do it again if I can get more use out of the lineup (Hudmo, Carmack, Lido, Oshi,  etc.) and also if I can get a guarantee to never get rained on the whole event. That sucked a lot. But I don’t even care. It was awesome and pretty much most of what I could have hoped for. 8/10.