Sweat clung to the back and glitter refused to fall off as heads bobbed up and down to the rhythm of the music. Moonrise Music Festival held in Baltimore Maryland at the Pimlico Racetrack on August 7-8 grew in size this year. Almost 35,000 people were in attendance at the 3-year-old festival this year compared to a roughly 5,000 in 2015.
Temperatures rose but tempers did not. With varying degrees of sober, everyone you ran into was having a good time. Unlike concerts I have been to in the past, no one yelled or pushed you away when you navigated the crowd to get to your friends—even if they were in front. Star Team Members made their way through the crowds with smiles on their face as they sprayed water into the mouths of appreciative festival attendees.
Security was the only downfall of the entire weekend. You expect to stand in line for a while when you are at a busy festival, but the lines were chaotic. I wouldn't even count them as line, it was more like one big cluster where people could easily move ahead of you if you weren't paying attention. Once you finally got to the front of the line, you either had a guard who did not check you at all or a guard that decided that your chapstick would be dangerous.
With the fiasco of getting to the festival aside, the rest of the day went by better than expected. I have never been much of an active EDM listening and I always imagined my first festival would contain jam bands, however, I don’t know if it was the crowd atmosphere or the excitement of my first festival, but my two days on the race track were wonderful.
As I sat down to talk with Flux Pavillion, NGHTMRE, and Bro Safari I was struck by how kind they were about not only their fans but also other artists. During each interview I asked about other artists, to which they talked of how much they were inspired by them and refused to comment on which artists they did not wish to collab with. Those artists, along with the festival in general, were filled with happy thoughts and good vibes.
As the sun went down and the bass got louder you could feel it in your entire body. The lights hit the air in patterns that were foreign to my eyes. I have seen lazar-light shows at concerts before, but if you have never seen artists like Bassnectar and Excision then you have not experienced a true light show. All of your senses are activated, whether you like it or not. You can smell the stench of people who have been baking in the sun all day, the lights as flash across your eyes, and your body feels the bass from the palms of your hands to the pit of your stomach. As totem poles and flags hovered over your head you tilted your head up as an attempt to catch whatever breeze you could. It was a weekend to remember.
