Bamboozle Concert Review - Part 1

It's long overdue, but until last weekend I had never been to an all day music festival. I know what you're thinking, you've been to dozens of shows, surely somewhere in there you mixed in a Coachella, SXSW, Bonaroo or Lollapalooza, right? Nope, not one despite multiple misfired attempts to attend one of the aforementioned festivals. So what does that make me? A really experienced concertgoer, but complete festival rookie.

Now before you go jumping to conclusions based on my intro paragraph, don't think for a minute that I didn't mitigate as much risk as I could before the festival began. Self awareness and preparation were two variables I had in my favor, so my planned route for the festival was as follows:

5:25-5:55 Mike Posner (Main Stage)
6:00-6:30 Aer (Temple of Boozle)
6:30-6:55 (Eat as much food as I possibly can)
6:55-7:40 Mac Miller (Main Stage)
8:00-9:50 Incubus (Main Stage)
8:50-9:15 Timeflies (Temple of Boozle)
9:15-9:30 Volbeat (Zumiez Stage)
9:30-11:00 Skrillex (Main Stage)

Looking over the lineup, there isn't much more that could have been packed into the one night of music. Clearly, the folks who planned out the three day festival made Friday night the rowdy, young crowd night and the final two days more contemporary, alt rock flavored music. Prior to the concert I was most excited to see Skrillex, Timeflies, Aer, Mike Posner and Mac Miller in that order. Incubus would serve as a tolerable time filler and Volbeat was a necessary watch because it's my girlfriends favorite band.

Part one of @thebamboozle concert review is going to be devoted to the smaller, opening acts. The first of which was @mikeposner who had somehow eluded me up until Bamboozle. I've written many times about how much I loved his latest mixtape, so I felt like I lucked out getting to see him when I did.

The best part of his set by far was the drum interlude he did with his two partners in crime onstage. I really enjoy it when artists go outside of what is expected and do something cool with percussion like he did. Cool performance gimmick aside, the best song he did in his set was by far Cooler Than Me (below)...

Next up was the up and comers from New England by the name of @theaermusic. In 2011 they released their What You Need EP, but to date, they are most well known for their laid back single Feel I Bring. Luckily for me, @beware4 of @tsscrew had provided me all I needed to know about Aer back in April, so I was well equipped with the recording device when they cranked out their crowd favorite...

Lesson learned, I am now officially on the Fresh Aer Movement bandwagon after seeing them wild out in concert. Just two crazy white kids who can pull off anything from Hip Hop to Reggae...watch out folks.

Last, but definitely not least on the list of opening acts was @timeflies. After writing about them back in December 2010, they DM-ed me thanking me for the love and giving them a shout out through my New Artist Spotlight piece I did on them. Now two full years later, they've got a healthy following and aren't so underground anymore. I can say that after hearing fans go word for word with them on some of their well known tracks. One thing is for sure though, @whatupcal is a talented dude when it comes to vocals. Case in point, his acapella rendition of Flo Rida's Wild Ones...

The biggest regret I had about Bamboozle was not getting to see as much of Timeflies set as I wanted to. Too many acts were scheduled around their set time of 8:50 PM and it didn't help that they didn't hit the stage until after 9 PM. You can bet the I will be on high alert for any tour dates within a 100 mile radius in an attempt to make up for my lack of coverage on their set.

That leaves me with nothing but the opening acts to write about. Keep it locked for part 2 of my Bamboozle review that will heavily feature Mac Miller, Incubus and Skrillex...