Day 1 Of ‘Day For Night’ Festival Sets The Bar Awesomely High
An epic gathering of Texas’ most iconic Hip-Hop artists took place Saturday (Dec. 17) at the opening to the eclectic Day For Night music and arts festival. The “Welcome To Houston” set featured greats Lil Keke, Lil Flip, Mike Jones, Devin The Dude, Z-Ro, Slim Thug, Paul Wall and the Underground King himself, Bun B. The collective ran through track-after-track of hits, courtesy of legendary producer DJ Michael “5000” Watts on the wheels spinin’ records “Still Tippin’”, “Like A Pimp” and “International Players Anthem.” The camaraderie among the crew was akin to that of a southern family reunion at barbecue. Bun B, who closed out the hour long showcase, wanted a temperature of the audience and asked whether the lineup should take their show on the road. With a resounding “Yeaaaah!” from the audience, don’t be surprised if in 2017, to see all the H-Town greats performing in a city near you.
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The geography of the festival was set up with four different stages (red, green, yellow, blue) of various talent all catering to any kind of music your heart desires. Alt-rock with the band Tyko, DJ Windows 98 spinning open format r&b, hip-hop and pop classics, and Kendrick Lamar collaborator, Thundercat, pushing sound boundaries with futuristic funk. Thundercat’s set powered the crowd early with sharp bass licks and a hard charging drummer rushed the pace past electric energy.
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The outside and indoor stages (located in the gutted out and massively spacious old Barbara Jordan Post Office) gave the option to stay and brave the humid to wet ranging weather or seek shelter in the dark, and spooky ambiance of the former mail holding center.
Throughout the day, the choices of making it to the Blood Orange set while Odesza was on made for some tough decisions, yet Blood Orange won out in the end and He didn’t disappoint either, as he went through old tunes and new selections from the audio awesomeness of his “Freetown Sound” album released this fall. Grabbing instruments left and right, he commanded the crowd with high pitched vocals and body jerking dance moves.
With an overlapping schedule, there were pockets of down time where you could check the art installations which varied from still clouds of white fur to walk through, to red laser beams that shot across the room in unison. Weird, but wildly inspirational, the scenes matched the attendees perfectly.
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Ending the night with the high key force of Run The Jewels was so perfect, that when they started one of their speaker blasting tunes, the weather decided to kick up and blow rain, sand and leaves right when the beat dropped! Rapping and prowling the stage like proud lions of their pride, the duo’s Killer Mike stood back to back with partner El-P and announced that “this is what IT looks like!!” Meaning in so many words, Black and White unity through music. Which in a way defines the essence of the Day For Night festival.
More action on Day Two coming soon!
