Heat Music Festival Over The Weekend

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Written by Janine Zuniga

Monday, 28 February 2011 08:02

The cold weather wasn’t nearly cold enough for those with warm memories of the Heat Music Festival 2011 Saturday night. The festival was completely sold out and the University of Riverside campus was filled to the brim with happy, dancing, high and drunk people.

Heat 2011 presented their fifth annual festival hosted by the UCR Highlander Union. Accommodations were made available for hungry, and freezing, patrons with food vendors set up along the sides of the promenade, including the Beer Garden for those of age. The line to get into the Beer Garden continually grew longer over the course of the night, like a dance club with those waiting to get in, even though the real dance floors were the other three stages.

The array of artists took to the stages according to their genre. The Vantage Dance Stage was an outdoor electronic dance experience with deejay’s performing above dance floor on the balcony. The Highland Stage was set up under a huge canopy and the Southland Stage, the smaller stage, both featured contemporary musical artists.

Vantage Dance Floor
The Vantage Dance Floor held shelter for various deejays on the balcony, spinning their ones-and-twos on their music controllers and some on their computers for aide. With fog machines on the balcony and on the surrounding area, LED moving head lights spotlighted crowd as the jumping mass of people broke a sweat.

Artist like Hyphy Crunk, Congorock and, for the night, the duo of Infected Mushroom led a dub-step and wave of glow sticks congregation.

Southland Stage
“If you not puttin’ yo hands up in the sky, go the Beer Garden,” said Richard Andrew, better known by his stage name Outasight, as he pointed to the Beer Garden across the yard and sang his closing song “Loosing My Mind.”

Artists at this stage attracted comparatively smaller crowds than the other stages but clearly fan-based. The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus also performed on this stage. Shrieking fans crowded the stage as guitar riffs excited the tension. Front man Ronnie Winter yelled into the microphone and asked, “Are you ready for some fucking noise?”

The set list for The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus including some old favorites and new music.

“We have a new record coming out,” Winter said, “It’s nothing like you’ve ever heard before, so fucking get ready for it.” The crowd began to jump and yell as the band debut their formally EP-only song “Choke.”

As the song attracted more friction within the crowd, as a small mosh-pit formed in the center. Winter addressed the movement and said, “If somebody falls down, what do we do?” as the crowd loudly responded with “Pick them up,” or at least some sort of version of a solution.

Between artists, the crowd developed consistency. That is, until Lil Jon took the stage a half hour before midnight. The crowd expanded itself 10-fold and stretched to the Beer Garden several yards across. Those lucky enough to squeeze themselves in were able to grab a quick glimpse of Lil Jon on the small and low stage. Even the noise coming from the stage was so muffled that any sound coming from the stage was unclear difficult to understand. But we can safely assume Lil Jon said, “Yeah!” in that way we all know and love.

Highland Stage
What seemed to have been the main attraction and the center of the commotion was the Highland Stage hosted by Alex “Cocoa” Thomas. This particular stage sanctioned the more popular musical artists and the aroma of weed and body heat.

The first to be a magnet for the gigantic and unfailing crowd was The Dirty Heads. The band performed a few songs before ending it with roars of cheer with the song “Lay Me Down.” Hands holding digital cameras and cell phones rose above the crowd.

Before the crowd could disperse, DJ Bliss introduced a variety of dance-remixed songs that were more widely known as compared to the Vantage Dance Stage. Songs like “Up in Here” by DMX, “One More Time” by Daft Punk and “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz were only a few of the songs that caught passerby’s to stop in their tracks and start dancing. Probably the most entertaining of the deejays because of his use of old school rap, ’90s music and today’s popular club hits.

Once the songs came to a halt, the lights had dimmed and the chanting of “Travie” grew louder and stronger.

“I want to thank each and every one of you for coming out in this cold ass weather,” Travie McCoy said. McCoy’s presence on stage had exhausted a cry of happiness, louder than the speakers before he sang “Kid Again.”

McCoy’s segment of the concert was just as entertaining as flirtatious. He constantly made small jokes or comments about the audience. A few times he looked into a crowd and said things like “Hey there, cutie in the pink top.”

“I know it is cold, but it’ll warm up,” McCoy said with a wink and a smile before he sang “Bad By Myself.”

“From the top of my heart, to the bottom of my love muscle,” McCoy said, “I absolutely, indubitably, need you.” Before long, McCoy’s heart-throbbing fans couldn’t take the heat while he sang “Need You” as everyone started to push each other and those on the rail were being pulled out to safety by security. And to completely indulge the audience, McCoy stood on the steps behind the barriers while he allowed fans to touch, caress him and hold his hand.

Against Me! ended the night on that stage was their loud and rioting lyrics. The members came one by one to their microphones and sang, “Pints of Guinness” with bouncing patrons who sang along.

“This is a crazy festival,” Gabel said on stage noticing some of the people the security forced to pull out of the concert. “Just try not to fuck with the wrong guy.” Against Me! performed a 20-song-set list lasted until around 12:30.

By the end of the night and into the next morning, Heat 2011 successfully completed another year of a collection of acclaimed artists, I'm looking forward to next year!