ON THE MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENT:
For two days out of the year, New Orleans becomes transformed into a magical city of neon lights, flower prints, and crazy outfits. This is due to the growing popularity of an event named BUKU Music & Arts Festival from the pals over at Winter Circle Productions & Huka Entertainment. The event, hosted at the lovely Mardi Gras World, has become a staple in the New Orleans young adult community over the past four years bringing hip new artists from all over the world geared towards the new generation. This year, 2015, the line up was a hit out of the ball park, with big names such as A$AP Rocky, Passion Pit, and TV on the Radio alongside many other artists.
My BUKU experience started off in the Float Den, a large warehouse with Mardi Gras floats across the walls and back ends of the location, along with lights streaming across the ceiling and over the crowd. One of the most influential names in electronic music right now, Mr. Carmack (Aaron Carmack) from Los Angeles, California, kick-started the event. He used his set to play smooth tracks and hard beats, starting off with his remix of “Charge” by Kaaris. From there he moved into tons of new and old material stretching from his old tropical tracks like “Brazilian,” to newer tunes from friends like “Retaliate” by Sam Gellaitry. His set was absolutely crazy and one of the most memorable of the festival.
From there, I travelled to the Back Alley, home to cool vibes and a calm relaxing setting with an overlook of the beautiful Crescent City Connection Bridge. There I witnessed suicideyear, a local artist from Baton Rouge, who could have completely blown the roof of the Back Alley if it had a roof to begin with. Of course he played his newest release on Bromance Records, “Don’t Worry” which was a big hit with the crowd, alongside a slew of unknown and unreleased music! Throughout the set, he showed jersey, footwork, and trap influences alongside all of his originals. Which made the set very reminiscent of the label Donky Pitch and their form of jersey/trap music.
Due to suicideyear blowing his set out of the water, I had only been able to catch the last half of Zomboy’s set, which was located in the Float Den. There he played plenty of originals from his past 3 EP’s (Raptor, Gorilla March, Organ Donor) and even ending with an unreleased track that made the crowd go insane. But soon after Zomboy had ended, the crowd migrated all the way over to the main stage, the Power Plant, a massive stage with the loudest sound system I’ve ever heard. This is where A$AP Rocky and a big section of A$AP Mob took the stage. His stage presence was grand but several times throughout the show, the other members of A$AP Mob really took away from Rocky’s performance. Besides that issue, songs like “Goldie” and “PMW” went crazy with the whole crowd of about 8,000 chanting the lyrics alongside him. In these songs, you could definitely see why and how he amassed the popularity he has. His performances on his original songs were strong and exciting to say the least.
Soon after A$AP Rocky, RL Grime took over the Float Den, playing a set that was full of gems and hard hitting drops. Of course he played a lot of his new album, “Void.” But with that came a ton of underground music, such as Rustie’s “Slasherr” and Baauer’s edit of “Tell Me.” The crowd was already at the peak of excitement as Flosstradamus walked on on stage waving their Hoodie Nation Flag, yet their pattern of playing a popular song then cutting to a hard drop became too repetitive to me after a couple songs. Maybe it was because I had already seen them live a couple times before, but judging from the crowd’s reaction, they did pretty well. It was a decent end to the first day at a very nice festival experience.
Day two of the BUKU Music & Arts Festival started off for me by seeing the 19 year old, xxyyxx, at the Float Den, who I had wanted to see live so eagerly since I heard “You Are Why I Am Invisible” on his personal soundcloud. Throughout his set he played super atmospheric sounds with these beautiful drums fills and percussion hits (he even played “Know Yourself” by Drake which was perfect at that festival volume) that filled up the Float Den even as early as 5:00 which was great for Odesza afterwards who destroyed the stage after playing huge tune after huge tune similar to a vibe that Flume or Vices could achieve. The song that stood out the most was their Pretty Lights remix of “Lost & Found” which filled up the Float Den with this overall feeling of happiness as soon as the climax of the song came. Which gave big insight to why the sound of their music is becoming more and more popular as time goes on.
Although, that was just the beginning of day two, as the day went on the Back Alley was more exciting than ever with Hyphee, a NOLA native, throwing down trap anthem after trap anthem. To top it all off there was an ongoing break-dancing circle in the middle of crowd with a hundred or two people all jumping in to add their own two cents of groove. The atmosphere here really helped capture the essence of the festival which was just the feeling of one big family event with people that you just met. Which shows how memorable BUKU Festival can be at it’s best and most genuine.
What only added to this experience was the magical experience of witnessing “beat wizard” Hudson Mohawke on stage at the Ballroom, a regular old venue stage with a true BUKU-esque spin. With the lights dimmed onto the DJ stand, Hudson Mohawke started off with a huge atmospheric intro where continuously harder and complex beats followed for a straight hour. While he did like to slow things down with another atmospheric tune every once in a while, the entire set by him was absolutely incredible with it’s unreleased tracks from himself while also playing the anthem single from Kanye West’s new album, “All Day,” which Hudson Mohawke helped produce. Over all, from playing his remix of “Vista” by Jackson & His Computer Band, to playing Thunder Bay off of his Satin Panthers EP, his entire set was one of the most memorable sets that I don’t expect to forget for a long, long time.
At this point, there was only one more act to see, Porter Robinson, and by the end of Hudson Mohawke’s set I couldn’t believe anything to be more awe-inspiring than that. But, Porter Robinson proved me wrong. Between his custom light show, his drums and synths being live, and his music being completely inspiring, Porter Robinson’s live “Worlds” show was one of the most beautiful and unique concert experiences I had ever seen. It was a light show full of beautiful custom renditions of all of his old tracks from his “Spitfire” EP, his lesser known tracks from his “Worlds” LP, and the most beautiful and interactive light show I’ve ever witnessed. (Which means don’t watch it on YouTube! Just wait for it live!) Overall a wonderful experience to end the BUKU Music & Arts Festival 2015 and will be a hard one to top in 2016.
ON THE FOOD & VIBES:
While at the festival I did encounter some delicious treats, of course for festival prices (which means i did not indulge as much as I really wanted to sadly). The first delicious meal came from Fireman Mike’s Kitchen, Fireman Mike being a contest winner on the Food Network show “Chopped,” I expected something delicious, which is exactly what I got. From trying both the jambalaya and the red beans and rice, it was completely apparent that BUKU picked the right vendors to capture the essence of New Orleans. These vendors included Bratz Y’all, White Guy’s Pad Thai, and many more types of snacks from pizza, to burritos and tacos! On the second day, I decided to try something a little out there, so I picked up a lamb gyro at Effie’s Greek Food, and thankfully it was delicious, with a simple lettuce and ranch dressing to top it off, it was a true highlight of the day for my stomach.
The food was only made better by the atmosphere around it. The vibe at BUKU festival was one of the key points as to why it has ben so successful in the past! Overlooking the CCC Bridge, which lit up during the hours where the sun didn’t shine, it still gave a nice overall feeling to the festival even through the long hours of the night. As if it was reminding you where you were whenever you looked over at it. Yet that was not all BUKU had to offer to make the festival more of an experience than a concert. From putt putt to stilt-walkers to a live DJ on a cart, there was always something to do or see as soon as you turned a corner while at BUKU. While on my way from the Back Alley to the Power Plant, I encountered not one but five separate mini-shows on the way there. Ranging from a brass band, to graffiti artists, to clowns putting on a circus act. There we’re plenty of good vibes coming from just one stage in that festival alone than in all of VooDoo Festival in my honest opinion. Which is why I say I’m truly excited and ready for next year’s event line up and see where they take this experience in the future.
written by egm. Eric Garcia-Martinez – https://soundcloud.com/globaleti – 2015
