Ubbi Dubbi 2019

Posted on by Hayley Nichols

This past weekend we took an adventure down to Fort Worth, Texas to go to the first annual Ubbi Dubbi Festival. It was a two-day predominantly EDM festival that took place at Panther Island Pavilion.

I probably won’t do it a lot of justice by writing about it this quickly, but I want to share some of my experiences that made my weekend. At the very end of Day 2 of the festival, I was thinking if I ever wanted to get back with my friends about how much I had learned and everything that I loved about that weekend, I would probably have to compile it in a book and get back with them in 20 years. It was one of those weekends that everything is absolutely perfect.

So on the first day, we got there around 3 and it was hottttt. We watched Lucii, Droeloe, Joyride, Boombox Cartel, NGHTMRE, Space Jesus and Zeds Dead. They all killed it and the energy of my friends and the people of the festival and the venue were all absolutely amazing.

Zeds Dead was a set that everyone in my group was super excited to see. Their sets are good pretty much every time, but this one was so much different. Maybe about 10 minutes into their set, we started to see heat lightning all across the sky above us. It kind of seems like it’s in sync with the songs and bass.. so obviously we’re in love and it’s just making us feel the music more. Eventually it starts to drizzle and everyone was feeling that because it was mega hot all day.

So the lightning and thunder roll in and I swear it is the closest thing to being in direct unison as the songs. At this point we r losing our literal minds. The rain got pretty intense, which caused a lot of people to leave, but my friends and I decided to tough it out (obviously, this was the most intense moment of our lives and we were not leaving that set until we were forced.) I think it’s important to add here that the venue that we were at was essentially in a riverbed. It had huge hills all around us that looked sort of like levys.

So…. that meant when the wind from the storm came through, it wouldn’t just gently glide past us horizontally, it would like go up the outside of the hills then smack down in the middle of the riverbed, where we were currently losing our marbles at the intensity. As you guessed, these intense wind gusts would also burst down on us at the perfect time in unison with the music. Only the strong and dedicated stuck around until the end, and we did, and I think it was one of my favorite experiences of my life. It was crazy to me that we were giving our energy to the universe of “Yes, we love this moment so much and we are intensely here for it” and the universe was literally responding back in unison with Zeds Dead. So yeah, we’re one with the universe now.

Day 2 was also legendary in its own unique ways, but I want to emphasize one story. I could go into very, very minute detail about every 15 seconds of this trip, but for time purposes. I’ll just hit the top highlights. So in the evening around 8, some of us wanted to leave the stage that all of our friends were at and watch Slander at the other stage. Me and probably 5 of my girlfriends took off to the opposite end of the venue. During this time, I got separated from my friends. When I first noticed this, I slightly panicked. Then after a few seconds I realized this would present me a really interesting opportunity for growth.

I realized that out of all the festivals I’ve been to, I’ve never consciously been alone. Buddy system everywhere, which is smart for the most part, but it’s super safe. Sometimes your life begins where your comfort zone ends. I decided to take this time to breathe in, trust myself and trust the universe. I knew that we probably couldn’t call or text because of how many people were there, but I knew that if I was trusting the universe and trusting myself, I would eventually glide back into them without needing my phone. It was such a strangely spiritual moment because this was one of the first times that I had been alone consciously in public, just enjoying my own energy and getting to know random people along my path. It was seriously so beautiful.

I managed to make it to Slander by myself and instead of trying to find my friends immediately, I got in the crowd by myself and just felt that connection and comfort with myself. I conveniently made it in time to hear some of their biggest EDM love songs, which is a notorious time for all couples to hold each other tight and express their love for each other. Had it been a few years/months/weeks ago, I would have been insanely uncomfortable hearing Slander’s amazing love songs and not having anyone to hold myself. I would have been sad when I realized everyone around me had someone to embrace in those moments… but this was the first time I had consciously chose the comfort of my own energy when I had the option of other people, and it felt so good and so right. When I heard those Slander love songs, I just sang those words to myself (“I’m falling back in love again”, “With you, I’m superhuman.”) It felt incredibly liberating.

We ended the perfect weekend with a perfect Illenium set and fireworks. That weekend gave me the energy to take on the world. I can’t wait to tell my grandkids that grandma was cool and survived a torrential downpour during Zeds Dead at the FIrst annual Ubbi Dubbi :’)

Riverfest 2018

Posted on by Hayley Nichols

I have gone to Riverfest in Little Rock every year since high school. For a long time, it was the only “festival” that I had access to, so it was one of my favorite events of the year. In the past few years, Riverfest has slipped a little on my priority list, but I have still gone to see several bands that I enjoy (and every person that I’ve ever met in Arkansas.)

This past year, I was underwhelmed with the line up, but I was excited to see Young the Giant. I’m pretty sure on Friday, we got there later in the afternoon and only saw Young the Giant perform. I was excited to check seeing them off of my bucket list, but it wasn’t anything groundbreaking.

Day 2 had a similar boring vibe, which was unfortunate to me. The group that we met up with wanted to see Kip Moore and Young Thug and I wasn’t into either of them, so I was just along for the ride. By the end of night 2, I was ready to give up on the weekend and call it a wrap for Riverfest 2018. I knew that my boyfriend, Hunter, wanted to see Peter Frampton on the following day, but I wasn’t looking forward to it because I didn’t know who he was.

On Sunday, I was less than thrilled to go back to Little Rock and see this mystery performer. I was trying to be a good sport about it, so on the way there I asked Hunter to play some of Peter Frampton’s songs, so I could get familiar…

~suddenly~

My dud of a weekend took an unexpected turn. I actually recognized his songs and apparently was familiar with Peter, but didn’t know his name. If you’re reading this and are not familiar with Peter.. he’s the one that sings “Baby, I Love Your Way,” “Do You Feel like We Do,” and “Show Me the Way.” If you’re reading this and ARE familiar with Peter, you’re probably like smh she didn’t know that was Peter.

His performance straight up blew my mind. I went from not recognizing his name to being his number 1 fan in a matter of hours. I always think it’s interesting to think about how one singer or one band can bring a certain energy to the stage and instantaneously spread that energy to thousands of people in the audience. Peter Frampton had an absolutely captivating stage presence.

Aside from him playing his songs that I knew, my other favorite moment was when he played an instrumental cover of “Black Hole Sun” in remembrance of the late Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell. He prefaced the song by asking the crowd to “join him in channeling Chris and sending love to his wife and kids.” We spent the next few moments feeling a loss and sending love. Peter followed by playing the most intense and beautiful cover of “Black Hole Sun.”

So, overall, his performance made me feel all the feels and I became his new biggest fan. I proceeded to take my love to twitter and let him know that he was my new favorite person and he responded to me :’) He will be returning to Little Rock on June 20th! It’s going to be the second stop on his final tour. I definitely recommend that you go if you have the opportunity!

So this post was less Riverfest 2018 and more Peter Frampton changed my life, but I’ve had a lot of life-changing experiences from music festivals. A lot of these experiences are hard to put into words, but hopefully I’ll get better at conveying them as I continue to document my adventures!

Beale Street Music Festival 2018

Posted on by Hayley Nichols

Last year, we decided to go to the Beale Street Music Festival on a whim. Reason being: Odesza. I was listening to Odesza in Colorado as the ball dropped on New Years and it truly changed my life. They very quickly became my favorite group so I was definitely down to pay $55 and go see them in Memphis. We originally went with the plan of seeing Odesza and Post Malone. We didn’t really know what to expect because we had never been to Memphis in May before.

We met up with our friends in Memphis and walked into the festival in time to see (I think Young Dolph?). I wasn’t super interested in seeing him and neither was my boyfriend, Hunter, but the rest of our group wanted to get closer to the stage for his performance. It was too hot on this day for me to participate in a close crowd, so we took this time to explore the festival grounds and planned to meet back up with our group at Post Malone.

While we were exploring, we ran straight into a group of people that we were sort of familiar with, so we stayed and chatted with them. (Side note: this is always super intriguing to me how you can be aimlessly wandering at a festival and run right into people you know. It always seems meant to be somehow) Misterwives was performing at that stage and I had forgotten about them, but I used to love several of their songs. We were comparing future festival plans with our new friends and it turned out that we were all going to Bonnaroo in June, so we made plans to hang out there too.

We were about to go find our original group at the stage Post Malone was playing at, but Alex, Wes, and Brice suggested that we stay and watch The Flaming Lips. I didn’t know a lot about The Flaming Lips, but I loved their song, “Do you Realize?,” so I was down.

This was straight up one of the best decisions we have ever made because their performance was so filled with love and good energy. You could feel the excitement and happiness in the air when they performed. They had a very psychedelic show consisting of colorful visuals, lots of confetti, and lovely music. (This next bit is PG-13, but stories of synchronicity are super important to me) At some point in the show, they brought out this massive balloon that said “F*!K YEAH MEMPHIS” and I thought it was wonderful, but also sort of familiar. Then I looked at my phone background..

The background that I had randomly found on the internet months before was actualllyyyy The Flaming Lips performing at Bonnaroo in 2014… The band that I was watching currently in Memphis.. with the same balloon.. that we were only seeing because we had ditched our original plan and chose spontaneity. :’)

Towards the end of their set, the singer appeared to be inside of an inflatable bubble on stage. “Space Oddity” started playing and everyone was singing along (~Ground Control to Maaajor Tom~) and watching him sing from his bubble… this man straight up walks out onto the crowd and crowd surfs in his bubble to finish the song. It was one of the most captivating moments I’ve ever seen. They concluded their set by giving a speech about love and then proceeded to play my favorite song, “Do you Realize?” 10/10 would recommend to a friend.

We concluded our day by falling in love with Odesza all over again. They had a perfect performance and left me in a state of total bliss. All in all, it was a perfect day and I’ll probably remember it forever.

Decadence Colorado 2017

Posted on by Hayley Nichols

Decadence is a music festival that takes place on the 30th and 31st of December in Denver, Colorado. I was excited for Decadence for several reasons: it was my first indoor festival, it was my first all EDM festival, and it was my first time in Colorado.

We arrived in Colorado several days before the festival to hang out and explore. It didn’t take me very long to fall in love with the state. It seems like there’s always something to do in Denver. We tried a lot of interesting restaurants, went to the aquarium, and went to a national park in the days before the festival.

One of our most interesting adventures was at a place called The Church. The Church is a night club that used to be (you guessed it) a church. It was truly one of the most eclectic places I have ever been… like partying under stain glass windows. On a different night, we went to a Decadence official pre-party at Beta nightclub and saw NGHTMRE. So basically, we had a lot of adventures before the main event even started.

Decadence is a unique festival for several reasons. It’s on the last two days of the year, so you get to jam to your favorite artists as a New Years party. It’s in the lovely state of Colorado (so that means that it’s usually very cold). Since it’s so cold, it takes place inside the Denver Convention Center. There are two stages in two different rooms (like the biggest rooms you can imagine). It’s an all EDM festival and the acts go from about 7pm to 3am both days.

On Saturday we got there when the doors opened so we could see Space Jesus first. I would guess that most people didn’t get there right when the doors opened because we had to wait outside in the cold before. That meant we got to be super close to the stage, which made it worth it. We stayed up close for Space Jesus, Tchami, and Louis the Child. I love Space Jesus and Louis the Child :’)

We moved a little farther back for TroyBoi. I really enjoyed his show! From 11:00pm to 12:30am I saw the most wild thing I had ever seen: my first Bassnectar set. I’ve since seen Bassnectar several times and it’s truly mind blowing every time. He is a creative genius and puts together sounds, visuals, and lasers that make your brain do back flips. If you haven’t heard of him or seen a show of his, I recommend looking up a set video on YouTube. Enjoy 😉

After Bassnectar, we went to the other stage to watch Slander and Getter. I really really love Slander because they have some songs you can dance hard to and some you can get emotional to. Balance :’) Going hard from 7:00pm to 3:00am can really exhaust you, so after that we went back to the AirBnB to rest and relax before day 2.

  • This was us waiting in line when it was below 10 degrees 🙂

On day 2 we got there a little later (probably around 7:30pm) and saw Borgore, Porter Robinson, and Galantis at the Grid Stage. We went over to the Time Vault stage in time to see Rufus Du Sol.

Quick little story about a synchronicity moment: At festivals, I usually stick with the group I came with, but sometimes I wander with my friends or boyfriend and then we lose the group. This is usually fine because you find them shortly and life is grand again. On this specific night, we had lost our friends for a while and I was kinda trippin’ about it. I really wanted to find them before Odesza/midnight (New Years). In between sets they play background music… and at Decadence, they usually play EDM. But between Rufus Du Sol and Odesza, they played a song by Tame Impala and I am in ~love~ with Tame Impala. Right after that song, they played aNother song by Tame Impala and I was beaming with joy… and right as I was, we found our friend Bhavik, (my favorite person on this earth) who then led us to the rest of the group… perfectly in time for Odesza.

Anyways, we saw Odesza from 11:00pm December 31st to 12:20am January 1st. This was my first time to see Odesza and it was incredibly special. If you have never heard of them, you should definitely go listen to their “A Moment Apart” album. There’s a good chance it will make your heart happy. My personal favorite song by them is “Late Night.” After Odesza, we saw Big Gigantic and Bro Safari. Both of these sets were also amazing.

And then all of a sudden, it was 2018, and we had just welcomed in the new year in the most wild way possible. I definitely would not have had it any other way.

Voodoo 2017

Posted on by Hayley Nichols

Voodoo Fest is a music and arts festival that takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana. It’s usually on the weekend on or closest to Halloween, which makes it super exciting because people can dress up in their Halloween costumes. I have gone to Voodoo the past two years and I want to share my first experience with you all!

I was excited for this lineup for several reasons. There was a lot of cool EDM artists on there (several that I had seen at Bonnaroo) and I was really leaning towards EDM being my favorite genre. I was also super excited about seeing Foo Fighters and The Killers because I had grown up listening to them. Then naturally, I was pumped to see Kendrick Lamar because I’m pretty sure that was peak Kendrick Lamar.

We stayed at the neatest Airbnb right outside of New Orleans. It was a lake house on stilts and it had a really fun nautical vibe. I think one of the most important aspects of festival planning is going with a group of awesome people, which makes for an awesome environment. We had a really great group staying in our little lake house so I was excited from the beginning of planning.

On Friday, we stayed at the EDM stage (Le Plur) for the majority of the day. It was a beautiful day and we ran into several of our friends that we didn’t plan on running into. This is always the most beautiful thing to me because.. what are the odds of you being in a different state in an environment with thousands of people then you magically run into your friends from back home.. absolutely lovely. JOYRYDE, NGHTMRE, Galantis, and Yellow Claw played at the Le Plur stage on this day.

We went to the main stage to see Kendrick Lamar on Friday night. It was an exciting thing to see him, but sometimes when big people headline at festivals and you know the majority of the people there will be there trying to see them, it becomes overwhelming. This is what happened for Kendrick. So when everyone left Kendrick, it was evvveryone, which caused a big traffic jam at the exit. Every now and then in festival traffic jams (like when everyone is piled up trying to exit) you can feel the nerves and tension growing around you. Then sometimes someone will yell “OH BABY YOU.. GOT WHAT I NEEEED” until the other half of the crowd follows with “You say he’s just a friend, you say he’s just a friend.” Then all of a sudden, you have a unified crowd singing together back and forth, to relieve the stress of waiting/leaving. Moments like these are super cute to me.

On Saturday, Foo Fighters, DJ Snake, RL Grime, and Illenium played. It started off warm and sunny on this day, but it was freezing when the sun went down. Unfortunately we couldn’t hang and had to call it a night in the middle of RL Grime. To this day, it is one of my biggest regrets that I didn’t tough it out and see the rest of his set.

On the last day, G Jones, Louis the Child, Post Malone, Dillon Francis, and The Killers played. My favorite sets were Louis the Child and Dillon Francis. Both of those were amazing. The last day of a festival is always bittersweet and makes you excited for the next one.

Voodoo is a very impressionable festival because of the Halloween vibes. It is fun to dress up, but it is also fun to interact with the spooky side of the festival. In the middle of the festival, they had a grave yard set up with people dressed up kind of like a haunted house. This was exciting to walk through every now and then (especially during the day so it wasn’t as scary). Voodoo left such a special place in my heart that I named my cat Nola, after New Orleans, Louisiana. For an added bonus, I will leave you all with some pictures of my darling, Nola.

Bonnaroo 2017

Posted on by Hayley Nichols

My festival journey began in Manchester, Tennessee on June 8, 2017. My eyes have never quite been opened like they were on this day. Imagine you and 65,000 of your closest friends are all together at the happiest place on earth. This is Bonnaroo.

Bonnaroo is an outdoor camping festival where most people set up a tent beside their car for the weekend. My friend, Kaylee, and I were lucky enough to be able to park her car in the same spot as our friends who brought an RV. This was a luxury to be able to have power and air conditioning every now and then. Pictured below, I’ve added the map of Centeroo, which is the main venue area.

As you can tell, there was a lot going on in Centeroo. There were multiple stages, tents, and vendors everywhere you could see. There was definitely something for everyone’s style of music and fun. Personally, I’m a huge fan of EDM (electric dance music).

Walking into Bonnaroo is something magical in itself. If you choose to walk up by “The Other” stage, you get to walk along a huge wall that is filled up with art and messages of inspiration. One of my favorite wall quotes was, “When you were born, the universe knew you were good.” I still think about this all the time. If you choose to walk under the arch through the main entrance, you get to weave through a snake-like line greeting all your new friends with a smile and high five.

Immediately, I could tell that the energy was something I had never felt before. In regular life, you encounter people that are up and down, all going different directions, doing different things. At Bonnaroo, it’s rare to see anyone sad. It’s thousands of people who have come together with music and love in mind. With that many people in the same location with that many positive intentions in the air, you leave a changed person with a new and beautiful perspective. Before I go any further, y’all should definitely see this lineup…

So this was an absolutely legendary lineup. It’s hard to choose who was my favorite performance, but I think it might have been Big Gigantic. Their songs were unlike anything I had ever heard before and they had wild visuals and lasers to accompany.

Everyone else that tied for a close 2nd in my book: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chance the Rapper, Major Lazer, Flume, Travis Scott, Glass Animals, Louis the Child, Illenium, NGHTMRE, G Jones, and Unlike Pluto.

One of my most interesting experiences occurred when we saw Travis Scott..”’bout to turn this function to Bonnaroo” 😉 We had to make a decision on this day whether to stand in line for the pit for Travis Scott or see Lorde. I was sad about missing Lorde, but it allowed for one of the craziest experiences of my life.

We waited in line for hours, then quickly filed in when they opened the pit…putting us about three rows away from the stage… making that the most loud and wild show I’ve ever seen.

Pro tips: invest in ear plugs for situations like so^ and probably avoid the pit unless you want to be knocked out or sweat to death

By the end of the weekend, it felt like Bonnaroo was my second home. We made so many new friends and I left with about 20 new favorite artists. I was inspired by the love and acceptance that I felt from everyone there. No one really cared what you looked like or how you expressed yourself, as long as you were feeling good.

I learned a lot of things from this trip. Most importantly, I learned to stop stressing so much about what people thought about me. I met a lot of friends that I loved after that trip just because of the people they were. “Come as you are” kind of love. I realized that the power of positive energy is a very real thing. It took an atmosphere with immense love and free spirit energy for me to understand how powerful it can be. I was super sad when we left, but I was so grateful for the experiences and memories made.

Love you forever, Bonnaroo :’)