The Panorama Music Festival Experience
Okay, so the title is a bit misleading. I only experienced Day one of the festival, not the entire weekend but what an experience it was. I refer to Summer 2017 as the "Summer Of Music" or more so the time frame that I am reaccepting my passion for a music-driven career... I looked at my work schedule last week and noticed I had the day off and decided to treat myself. I called my friend who was already going and said, "Let's do this!" The rest of the story was history.
I woke up super excited and thanked God the weather was not the thunderstorm the forecast predicted earlier that week. Friday, July 28, worked out because it happened to be the day of the festival of artists I truly wanted to see: Solange, MGMT, Frank Ocean, Tyler, The Creator and Girl Talk amongst many more. The thing is I only ended up seeing the first three acts I listed. This is my second music festival experience, after Afropunk in 2015. Living in New York City, I have yet to experience what I think is the true music festival experience; you know, the Coachella experience of camping. Waking up and going to bed at a festival seems great in theory but I do not know if I can actually do that. So I arrived at 4:00pm which was much later than I anticipated.
As my friend and I glided through the entrance, I see all festival goers in their ensembles having a great time. We head over to The HP lab which featured some out-of-this-world technological art installations; they also made for some great social media content. After that, we grabbed a couple of cider ale's and headed over to the main Panorama stage. At the time we arrived it was just before 6:30pm so we were able to see the top three billed acts of the night: MGMT, Solange and Frank Ocean.
MGMT's album, 'Oracular Spectacular,' was the album that introduced the masses to the psychedelic duo. I consider myself casual fans of the group. They performed "Kids" and "Time To Pretend." The song I was most excited about was of course, "Electric Feel." Now this song is a song that I will listen to decades from now however the crowd's energy was more impactful than the actual delivery of the song. I did not quite feel the electricity like I anticipated.
Up next was the lady of the night, Solange. That's right, just Solange, she earned that. I always loved Solange as an artist. My love for her melodic style of singing and music blossomed from back in 2002 with her "True Love" collaboration with Lil Romeo. To this day, I still listen to "Feelin' You" featuring N.O.R.E. I did not just arrive at this table. Anyway, I can go on and on about how I always supported Solange. Her set was executed so well to me from the red theme, to the choreography, to the harmonizing to everything else! She then did it, she performed "Losing You" and then I lost it. It took me back to 2012 when I was back home in The Bahamas, driving with my windows down along the beach and just blasting that song. Solange, thank you for an amazing 90 minutes.
Last, but certainly not least was Frank Ocean. Honestly, I'm a casual Frank Ocean fan at most. I like a few of his songs, mostly his early Midi-Mafia demos. With that being stated, I have to admit that I was thoroughly impressed by his artistic presentation. As he is not an stage entertainer I love how well video was used in his set. It was literally like watching an edited docufilm of one of his concerts on the jumbotron, except it was live. Ocean really has an effect on people; there was a guy next to me literally balling out his eyes. I was taken aback at that reaction: very powerful. My standout moment came in the form of stirring rendition of "Good Guy." The album version sounds terrible, in my opinion, but Ocean turned the ballad into a timeless gem of a song. The blonded crooner's music is still too mellow for me but he was the perfect ending to a great night.
Living life, check marking your bucket list off with your loved ones is what it is all about. The Day One experience at the Panorama Music Festival was one of those experiences I can log for life long memories. Thank you performing artists for giving us a great time.